






Copyright N? 


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THE APPLE -TREE SPRITE 


By Miss Morley 

The Apple-Tree Sprite. 12mo. . . . $1.10 

A Song of Life. 12mo 1.10 

Life and Love. 12mo 1.10 

The Bee People. 12mo 1.10 

Little Mitchell. 12mo 1.10 

The Renewal of Life. 12mo. . . . 1.10 

Grasshopper Land. 12mo 1.10 

Donkey John of the Toy Valley. 

12mo 1.10 

Will o’ the Wasps. 12mo 1.10 

All Fully Illustrated 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
CHICAGO 


THE 


Apple-tree Sprite 


BY 

MARGARET WARNER MORLEY 

Author of 

“A SONG OF LIFE,” “WILL O’ THE WASPS,” 

“ THE BEE PEOPLE,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 



CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1915 


Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 
1915 


Published October, 1 9 1 5 



9 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE APPLE TREE i 

II. NOW COMES THE SPRITE .... 4 

III. A SHOWER OF PETALS 8 

IV. AWAY GO SOME OF THE YOUNG 

APPLES . 12 

V. WHEN THE FAIRY COMES AGAIN . . 19 

VI. THE CRADLES 25 

VII. WHAT ELSE? 30 

VIII. APPLE STEMS AND NECTAR CUPS, 

POLLEN GRAINS AND OVULES . . 3 3 

IX. BREAD AND HONEY 38 

X. APPLES AND APPLE SEEDS .... 42 

XI. RIPE APPLES 48 

XII. CHRISTOBEL PASSES HER EXAMINA- 

TION 54 

XIII. THANKSGIVING 58 

XIV. THE APPLE STORY 61 

XV. A MIDNIGHT VISIT . 64 

XVI. FATHER’S STORY . 69 

XVII. THE APPLES OF HESPERIDES ... 73 

XVIII. MORE STORIES 81 

XIX. ATALANTA 85 

XX. A NORTHERN APPLE STORY ... 90 

XXL OTHER APPLES 97 

XXII. SPRING COMES AGAIN 99 

XXIII. WHAT IS A FLOWER? 104 

XXIV. THE COMING OF THE BEES .... 109 

XXV. SUMMER EVENINGS 113 

XXVI. THE IDEA OF THE TREE . . . ... 118 

XXVII. CHRISTOBEL’S DECISION 123 

XXVIII. WHERE OUR APPLES CAME FROM . 131 


6 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIX. FUN AND FACT 139 

XXX. AUTUMN LEAVES 143 

XXXI. PLANNING AN APPLE THANKSGIVING 

PARTY . 147 

XXXII. THE INVITATIONS lSS 

XXXIII. ALL IS READY 1 59 

XXXIV. THE PARTY 167 

XXXV. THE NIGHT AFTER THE PARTY . .171 

XXXVI. THE PEARS . . 175 

XXXVII. THE QUINCE-TREE FAIRY .... 187 

XXXVIII. COUSINS, UNCLES, AND AUNTS . . 195 

XXXIX. PLANTING THE APPLE TREE ... 201 


THE APPLE TREE 


lr 

C HRISTOBEL went to sleep in the apple 
tree. She climbed into the low crotch, 
made herself comfortable, and went to 
sleep. 

The tree was covered with pink and 
white blossoms that clustered close about 
her. They looked at her and kept very 
still. 


2 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

A mother robin sat on her eggs in the 
tree top, only the tip' of her bill showing 
over the rim of the nest. The father bird 
stopped singing when he saw Christobel. 
He turned his head on one side, stooped 
down and looked at her. 

“That is not a bird,” he thought. “It 
looks more like a big white apple blossom 
with red trimmings.” He thought this be- 
cause Christobel had on a white dress and 
red hair-ribbons and red stockings. 

Suddenly a little red topknot bobbed 
around the tree trunk, and then bobbed 
back again out of sight. Mr. Woodpecker 
had his nest in a hole in the tree where his 
wife was sitting on the eggs. He went in 
and told her about it. “I am sure it is a 
little girl,” he said, “ and that is not as bad 
as a cat.” 

A bit of a wren came flitting close and 
looked her over. Then he hurried away, 
scolding with all his might. 

The honey bees flew over her on their 
way to get honey from the flowers. A big 
black wasp settled on her hand for a mo- 


3 


The Apple Tree 

ment, flirted his wings and buzzed on about 
his business. A yellow-girdled bumble bee 
fumbled about in a flower cup close to her 
ear, loading his baskets with pollen bread. 

The sun up in the sky rained golden light 
all over the tree and the apple blossoms and 
Christobel. 



A LL at once Christobel came wide 
awake. At least that is the way it 
seemed to her when she thought about it 
afterwards. 

“Dear me,” she said, “I wish I had a 
ripe apple, right now.” Then she stared 
and sat up straight. What she saw was a 


4 


Now Comes the Sprite 5 

little old woman with cheeks as red as a 
rose, and a smile as pleasant as a May day. 
She had a silky-white shawl over her shoul- 
ders and a neat white cap on her head, and 
she looked very wise, although she was 
scarcely six inches high. 

“She reminds me of grandmother,” 
thought Christobel. Then the little old 
woman spoke in a very pleasant voice — 
“just like grandmother’s,” again thought 
Christobel. 

“My Dear,” said the little old woman, 
“ 1 can give you a ripe apple right off this 
tree, but first I shall have to finish it; you 
can see for yourself that the apples are 
only just begun.” 

“Oh,” said Christobel, politely, “you 
must not hurry on my account. It must be 
a great deal of trouble to finish up so many 
apples — do you have it all to do?” 

“I should think so!” and the little .old 
woman laughed merrily. “Not only the 
apples on this tree, but on every tree in the 
orchard. For you must know that each 
orchard has its own Apple-Tree Sprite, and 


6 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

I am the Sprite of this one. Would you 
like to see me finish an apple ? ” 

“Oh, yes, that I would,' ” said Christobel 
eagerly; then added, “but perhaps I ought 
not to bother you. Mother says I am al- 
ways bothering her to do one thing when 
she wants to do another.” 

“Oh, no matter,” said the little old 
woman in so cheery a tone that Christobel 
laughed aloud. “ It will amuse me to fin- 
ish up an apple right off. It will be some- 
thing new. Generally I do a little on all 
of them and there are so many I never get 
done with it before summer is over and 
gone. Besides, now is as good as any time 
to show you a thing or two while you are 
asleep.” 

“Am I asleep ? ” asked Christobel, very 
much mortified. 

“If you are, so much the better; your 
mind won't be wandering about whenever 
a turkey clucks or a chicken peeps. So 
much the better.” And the little old woman 
nodded her head solemnly three times, and 
then burst out laughing and laughed until 


7 


Now Comes the Sprite 

Christobel could not help joining in, and 
laughed and laughed too, until she thought 
she would roll out of the tree. 

“Dear me,” said the little old woman, 
wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as fine 
as a cobweb, “dear me, it is the smell of 
the apple blossoms. It always makes one 
feel like laughing.” 

“ I have noticed it,” said Christobel. 


Ill 


A SHOWER OF PETALS 

“MOW watch!” and the Apple-Tree 
IN Sprite flashed like light among the 
flowers, now here, now there. It seemed 
to Christobel that she was everywhere at 
once. 

Then something happened. Down from 
the tree fell a shower of petals. They all 
let go at once, dozens and hundreds of 
them, floating and turning about and set- 
tling down to the ground that was already 
white with petals. For when apple blos- 
soms fall, as you well know, they look 
white rather than pink as they cover the 
earth. 

How Christobel laughed ! “ That was so 
pretty,” she cried, “like tiny white butter- 
flies dancing about in the air; or no, it was 
like great big pink and white snow flakes, 
and there is the snow on the ground.” 

8 


9 


A Shower of Petals 

“You may think it a small matter to 
take off the petals from more than a hun- 
dred big trees,” said the Sprite with a merry 
laugh as she came to rest, light as thistle- 
down, on a twig near Christobel; “but 1 
can tell you, it is a big undertaking. I feel 
as if I had worked a year by the time it is 
over with.” 

“Oh, but,” said Christobel, in surprise, 
“why now, did you do it? I thought the 
wind blew them off!” 

“Well, that is where you are mistaken, 
My Dear,” said the little old woman, whose 
eyes twinkled so, and whose cheeks grew 
so red that Christobel thought she must be 
going to have another laughing fit. 

“Of course the wind helps when all is 
ready; but first I have to go about and 
carefully loosen each petal. Otherwise the 
wind might blow himself hoarse and not 
one would let go. You think it cruel to 
send them fluttering down away from their 
tree? Oh, My Dear, how could the little 
apples grow if they staid forever coddled 
up in pink petals? The petals, you know, 


IO 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

are only the clothing after all. They are the 
pretty baby clothes of the little green apples. 
Now I must be off again,” and Christobel 
saw the little old woman flashing here and 
there all over the tree. When she got a 
little way off she looked like a tiny star. 

“Now watch !” and she again alighted 
on a twig close to Christobel. “Listen!” 
and Christobel heard a breeze running and 
dancing through the trees. “That little 
breeze is after them,” chuckled the little old 
woman. And then the breeze caught them, 
and whirled them, and tossed them. Into 
its arms leaped each pink petal, around and 
about, up and down and away they danced 
and whirled in a grand frolic. Then they 
all settled down as sedate as snowflakes to 
the ground. 

Christobel had stuffed her fist into her 
mouth to keep from squealing at the pretty 
sight. Now she took it out and said, “Oh, 
but that was pretty! How do you do it? 
How do you make them let go? ” 

“ I’ll show you,” and the little old woman 
pinched the end of a petal that had not yet 


A Shower of Petals II 

fallen. She pinched it just where it was 
fastened to the flower. Christobel noticed 
that her fingers were as slender as the feel- 
ers of a May fly, and yet wherever they 
pinched it, the petal dried up at that point. 
“ Pinch some more,” begged Christobel, 
and the little old woman pinched and 
pinched, until another breeze came along 
and carried away all the petals she had 
loosened. 

“That,” said the little old woman, as 
they watched the merry dance, “is the very 
first step towards finishing up an apple. 
You must get rid of the petals, you know.” 




AWAY GO 
SOME OF THE 
YOUNG APPLES 

OW what? ” asked 


ing at a cluster of tiny green apples 
left bare by the flying away of the 
petals. “If those were real babies they 
would surely take cold out in the wind with 
nothing on — but they are hard as bul- 
lets, and not much bigger — queer apples, 
those! ” 

The fairy laughed and began to caress 
one of the little green bullets, and Christo- 
bel saw it grow larger and smoother under 
her magic touch. The rest of the apples in 
the same cluster did not grow at all. 


12 


Away Go the Young Apples 13 

“ Those other apples must all fall off 
like the petals. I will attend to that in a 
minute,” said the little old woman, as 
she saw Christobel looking at them and 
wondering. 

“Oh, the poor little apples,” cried Chris- 
tobel; “do help them, too; why need they 
fall?” 

“Oh, it won't hurt,” laughed the little 
old woman. “They won’t know anything 
, about it, poor dears; they will just disap- 
pear. It does no harm to disappear, you 
know, if you don’t know it. The reason 
they must go is this: if they all grew up, 
how much room would there be on that 
twig for them? You see, there would not 
be room for any of them to grow properly. 
Now, when I finish apples I want them 
worth the trouble. So I take only the big- 
gest and best in each cluster, and help the 
others down to the ground where they have 
something worth while to do.” 

“Something to do? Down there on the 
ground — all dead and rotten? ” and Chris- 
tobel’s lip trembled for a moment. 


14 The Apple-Tree Sprite 


The Sprite looked at her, then said gen- 
tly: “You don’t understand, child. They 
turn back into what they came from. 



/ 



what 'else to say. 

“I should think so,” and the little old 
woman laughed again, and her laughter 
now sounded like a chime of little silver 
bells, and Christobel noticed how she had 
changed. She seemed all made of dew 
drops and sunbeams so that the very air 
about her sparkled and smelled damp and 
sweet. Christobel began to feel warm and 
lazy as one feels in midsummer, and she 
saw that the little apple the fairy was still 
caressing kept on growing. 

And now the light little fingers touched 
the stems of some of the other little apples 
in the cluster, and lo ! the stems at the point 


16 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

where she touched them withered away 
until they no longer clung fast to the branch 
but one by one fell lightly to the ground. 

Christobel thought the little old woman's 
face looked sad at the moment this hap- 
pened, but she could not be sure, for in a 
moment it sparkled and shone, and her 
cheeks were as red as the heart of the sun 
at midday. 

“I don’t take the whole cluster off at 
once,” she said, gaily; “if I left only one 
apple to grow, something might go wrong 
with it, then where would you be ! Besides, 
it is only fair to give them all a chance. 
The weakest go right away. But the rest 
stay on, and after awhile the next weakest 
have to go, and so on until only one or two 
of the best stay.” 

“ But if you make them all, why do you 
make one better than the rest? ” 

The fairy shook her head. “ I don’t make ' 
them — and 1 do. They have to help — 
that is all I can say. I can’t help making 
some better than others. It comes so in 
spite of me.” 


Away Go the Young Apples 17 

Christobel clapped her hands. “The 
poorest of the little green apples fall off! 
Now that is why we always see the ground 
under the apple tree covered with little 
green apples! I used to wonder why they 
did it, and wish they would stay on the tree 
and grow. But now 1 see they fall off, or 
else we wouldn’t have any good apples at 
all!” 

“Yes,” said the fairy, nodding her head 
very fast and dimpling all over. “ Now you 
have it. The best stay on. The others have 
to get out of the way. It is a law of nature, 
and a good law, too.” 

“Now,” went on the fairy, “you must 
go, your mother is calling you; and as for 
me — well, you know there is work enough 
for me to do with these petals not all off 
yet, and a whole orchardful of apples to 
finish up, to say nothing of the leaves that 
are only half done.” 

“ Do you have to make all the leaves too ? 
I wish I could help you,” said Christobel, 
longingly. She thought it would be a fine 
thing to spend the summer finishing up 


1 8 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

apples. But all of a sudden she discovered 
that the fairy had gone and that her mother 
really was calling, although she had not 
heard her before. 



V 


WHEN THE FAIRY COMES AGAIN 

“\V7HY, Christobel, where have you 

VV been? ” asked mother, a little impa- 
tiently. “ I have been calling and calling.” 

“I didn't hear only the last call,” said 
Christobel, rushing into the house. “ And, 
oh, Mummy Dear, do you know all those 
things father told us about how apples grow 
are true ! I have seen it with my own eyes,” 
and she told about the visit from the Apple- 
Tree Sprite, in which her mother was very 
much interested. 

“ It is a pretty story,” said mother, when 
it was done, “and the best of it is, it is all 
true.” 

Of course, Christobel told it all over to 
her father and the boys that night. 

“You went to sleep and dreamed it,” 
said Robert, teasingly. 

“ No matter if she did,” said father, catch- 
ing Christobel as she made a dash at Robert. 


19 



were not looking, she climbed into the 
apple tree again, but could not see the 
fairy anywhere. She tried for several days, 
but as she saw nothing, she finally gave 
it up, and just lay and looked up into 
the sky. 

“Now have your eyes about you, My 
Dear/’ cried a merry, wee little voice. 

“Oh, it is you,” exclaimed Christobel, 
delightedly, and sure enough, there sat the 
Apple-Tree Sprite, not three feet away, 
smiling and nodding. 

“Where were you? ” asked Christobel in 
surprise. “I have been looking every- 
where.” 

The fairy laughed and then repeated, 
“ Now have your eyes about you, for here is 
a sight you will not see every day.” And 


21 


When the Fairy Comes Again 

Christobel, looking, saw indeed a strange 
thing. The little apple the Sprite was 
caressing seemed to have become transpar- 
ent like glass. She could see inside it and 
watch what was going on there. Not that 
the apple itself had changed, but the fairy 
had given Christobel’s eyes the power to 
see through the apple. The right kind of 
fairies can do that, you know. 

“Why!” cried Christobel, “you are 
building up the apple like a little block 
house, and how funny! you keep splitting 
the blocks to make more; and the blocks — 
why, they grow! ” 

“Just keep looking,” said the fairy, glee- 
fully; “just keep looking.” 

“Why!” exclaimed Christobel, “I see 
the sap streaming in, down through the 
little apple stem. It comes running in 
and bathes all the little blocks and they 
grow!” 

“That is just it!” cried the fairy, who 
grew brighter and gayer every minute, so 
that no one could any longer say she looked 
like a little old woman. As she spoke she 


22 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

caressed the young apple yet more lov- 
ingly, and it grew larger and larger, and 
Christobel saw little white seeds inside 
the core. 

“Oh, see!” she cried; “the little seeds 
are fastened to the sides by oh, such tiny, 
tiny stems. Why,” she went on, “ through 
those very tiny stems the sap flows in, and 
oh, it is your wee fingers, there inside the 
seeds, weaving and weaving and making 
the seeds larger!” 

“ I don’t quite like you to call my build- 
ing material blocks,” said the Sprite with a 
merry nod at Christobel. “Blocks make 
one think of hard, dead, solid chunks of 
wood. Now, these little things I use are 
neither hard nor dead. They are alive. 
They are like very delicate skins filled with 
clear jelly, only this jelly is alive, and they 
have many shapes.” 

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Christobel, 
suddenly remembering, “your little live 
building blocks are called ‘cells’ — isn’t 
that it?” 

“Yes, that is what men call them; it is 


When the Fairy Comes Again 23 

better to give them a name of their own, 
you know,” and the Sprite went on weav- 
ing away at the magic apple. 

“What am I to call you?” asked Chris- 
tobel, feeling sudden awe of the cheery and 
wonderful little creature. 

As the child asked this, the fairy seemed 
to flame out in a great light, and her voice 
was very sweet as she said, “lama servant 
of the good God. I follow his will. Now 
watch!” and the apple began to enlarge 
faster and faster. 

“How it does grow — you can almost 
see it grow!” said Christobel, just as her 
mother said of the apples on this tree every 
year. 

“Almost!” sparkled the fairy, and 
laughed merrily, while Christobel laughed 
too and said, “Oh, this time I can quite 
see it grow, and how much lighter and 
looser the pulp looks now, and it is getting 
to be such a clear, pretty color, and see — 
why, the apple is full size now, the seeds, 
have turned black, too! and, oh dear! oh 
dear!” — for the air was all hot and sweet 


24 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

like early autumn, and such a change was 
taking place in the apple! 

“ I am baking it for you now, My Dear,” 
said the fairy merrily. “You know ripe 
apples are just apples baked by the sunshine 
that I pour into them — there!” and sure 
enough, the sour, hard pulp of the green 
apple suddenly mellowed and became full 
of rich golden juice, and a delicate and deli- 
cious fragrance streamed forth until all the 
world smelled like a ripe apple. 

“ I must paint the skin a little,” said the 
fairy, still caressing the apple, which began 
to grow red, and became redder and redder, 
until it was the reddest-red apple you ever 
saw. 

“It is so pretty!” cried Christobel, “I 
shall never be able to eat it, I know. And 
yet, how good it smells. Dear me! To 
think of ever having anything as lovely as 
apples to eat.” 



THE CRADLES 

C HRISTOBEL could still see inside the 
apple, right through the bright red 
skin, and she noticed how the fairy’s fingers 
had woven the core together with tough 
threads made of the core cells until it was 
hard enough to stick in your throat. 

“Why wouldn’t a soft core be rather 
nice?” suggested Christobel, a little tim- 
idly, for she did not wish to seem to criti- 
cise the work of the fairy. 

“Why, My Dear,” said the Sprite, laugh- 
ing gleefully, and shaking her head, “the 
truth is, this core is a cradle. It is the cradle 
of the apple seeds, and they, you know, are 
25 


26 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

the children of the tree. Yes, the little seed 
babies need a good strong cradle to protect 
them from being chewed up by cows or 
boys, or by anybody who might chance to 
eat the apple. The seed babies are impor- 
tant, you know — the dear little children of 
the apple tree.” 

“Oh, I see,” said Christobel, “but I won- 
der why you always make five little cradles 
in the core; no more, no less. I have often 
noticed it.” 

“ 1 can’t tell you that, My Dear, any more 
than I can tell you why I always make five 
dainty petals and five strong, green calyx 
lobes on each flower. Five is my number, 
that is all I can say.” 

“The petals fall off, but the calyx stays, 
and so do the dried-up stamens,” said Chris- 
tobel. “ See, each little green apple is tipped 
with five green points and a crowd of little 
dried-up stamens, and — oh, dear me, here 
they are, all withered up and brown, on the 
ripe apple, too!” 

The Sprite smiled and twinkled. “Yes, 
they stay on. They are all that remains of 



Cradles 


27 


the blossom. The 
finished apple always 
bears those reminders of 
its blossoming days.” 

: I am glad they stay 
on,” said Christobel, “they finish the apple 
off so well. Why, an apple would not look 
like itself without the little dried-up brown 
rose in the dimple opposite the stem. Dear 
me!” and Christobel suddenly clapped her 
hands. “Suppose the petals did not fade 
and fall; suppose they staid on the end of 
the apple, too; wouldn’t that be pretty!” 

The fairy laughed a little sadly. “You 
wouldn’t like it,” she said; “it would be 
neither one thing nor the other; there are 
reasons why you wouldn’t like it.” 

“My little botany book says that the 
apple-tree blossoms and the apples grow all 
for the sake of the apple-seed children,” said 
Christobel, suddenly remembering. 

The fairy shook her head. “ Half right 
and two-thirds wrong, My Dear. Almost 
everything that people write is that way — 
half right and two-thirds wrong. Please 


28 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

remember that. The tree blossoms and the 
seeds grow, is the truer way to put it. No, 
no, the tree does not blossom for the seeds 
alone; but when the tree bursts out into 
beautiful flowers — why, then the seeds are 
a part of it. And it is so with the apple, too. 
The rich, juicy apple is not wholly for the 
sake of the seeds, but when the joy of life 
laughs out in lovely apples, the seeds are a 
part of it all. I hope you understand, My 
Dear.” 

“ I do — sort of,” said Christobel, hesi- 
tatingly. 

The fairy laughed and it was like the 
tinkling of little silver bells. “Oh, My 
Dear! the fragrance and the loveliness of 
flowers are not wholly for the sake of the 
little senseless seeds. The fragrance and 
the flowers, My Dear, are the spring songs, 
the love songs of the blessed earth, and the 
seeds are born from them. You must not 
make a mistake and get it wrong, or it may 
make a difference with your whole life's 
happiness.” 

Christobel said nothing, and soon the 


The Cradles 


29 


fairy went on, — “You might as well say, 
My Dear, that the sap runs, and the whole 
tree grows for the sake of the seeds.” 

“ How absurd that would be ! ” laughed 
Christobel. 

“Yes, yes, it would be absurd, utterly 
absurd; no, it’s the other way — the sap 
runs and the tree grows in beauty, and it 
gives a part of its own great life to the seeds 
that, other trees may spring from it, and 
grow in beauty and happiness.” 


VII 


WHAT ELSE? 

D O you make the sap run and cause 
the tree to grow ? ” asked Christobel, 
thoughtfully. “ Perhaps it is enough for 
one fairy, though, to make apples.” 

The fairy twinkled. “Yes, My Dear, I 
do it all, and you may believe that in the 
spring of the year I sometimes feel as though 



What Else? 


31 


tiful, one moment among the apple blos- 
soms, the next at the root of the tree, down 
in the ground among the tender rootlets; 
oh, it is joy to wake up the young 
rootlets and put food into their eager, 
searching mouths! How the little tender 
mouths suck up the juices of the earth! 
And the lifeless food that they draw from 
the great earth mother they build into a 
living body.” 

“They first make it into sap,” said 
Christobel. 

“Yes, and what is sap? It is the blood 
of the plant, the rich, life-giving blood that 
mounts up through the roots, and through 
the trunk of the tree, and out through the 
branches and the little twigs to the green 
leaves, where it is changed into perfect food 
for the flowers and the fruits. Yes, My 
Dear, first and last, your apple is made of 
sap, the blood of the plant.” 

“Our blood is red,” said Christobel. 

“Yes, it is red, the loveliest rich-red color 
in the world; redder than rubies, My Dear, 
and more precious than rubies of Burmah. 


32 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

You see your beautiful blood sometimes 
when you scratch your finger, and it comes 
rushing forth, hot and bright, the most bril- 
liant red color there is in all the world. Oh, 
it is well for your blood to be red, My Dear. 
The blood of the plant is pale and thin; it 
does not need to be all rich and red like 
yours.” 

“ What color is your blood, pretty fairy ?” 
asked Christobel, curiously. But the fairy 
only laughed. 


VIII 


APPLE STEMS AND NECTAR CUPS 
POLLEN GRAINS AND OVULES 

“T^HE sap gets into the apple through the 
A stem/’ said Christobel, wishing to con- 
tinue the conversation. 

“Yes,” responded the Apple-Tree Sprite, 
“it gets in through the stem. Every apple 
stem has to be made as carefully as can be 
so that the sap can pass through it into the 
core with its five little cradles, you know, 
and into the tiny seeds that are fastened to 
the cradles by tiny, tiny stems. It takes 
nimble wits to make an apple, My Dear.” 

“I should think so,” said Christobel, 
“ and so many things to think about in fin- 
ishing up a flower — the nectar cups now. 
I should like to make nectar cups and fill 
them with honey for the bees.” 

“Oh, yes, it is a pleasant task to make 
nectar cups and distil the sweet nectar into 


33 


34 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

them. It is a joy, too, to make the anther 
pockets and fill them with pollen dust. 
Oh, that pollen! It is as important a 
piece of work as the little seeds in 
the core. When all is said, there is ^ f 
nothing about the tree so difficult ^ 
to get just right as the pollen 
grains and the young seeds 
which you call ovules. The 
ovules, you know, are the , 
very beginnings of the 
seeds.” 

“Yes, I know,” said Chris- 
tobel, “but why is it so 
difficult to make them? 



Apple Stems and Nectar Cups 35 

make a tree; but when it comes to a 
pollen grain, or an 


ovule 



there is no room 
then for mistakes. 
Every touch, every 
atom must be perfect. 
You see the whole tree must be put 
safely away in each pollen grain; think 
of that! and in each ovule. Ah, what a 
task is this! such countless millions of 
pollen grains to be budded off from the 
inner part of the anthers, each one per- 
fect, each bearing the impress of the 
whole tree! And from the inner wall 
of the seed pod, you know, from the 
inner wall of the cradle, must be budded 
off the ovules, each one perfect of its kind, 
and each bearing the power to produce 
again the whole tree.” 

“I thought the pollen held half the 



36 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

tree, and the ovule the other half,” said 
Christobel. 

Again the fairy tinkled out that laugh 
like a chime of little bells. “More than 
half, My Dear, more than half. Each is all, 
yet each without the other is naught. Each 
must have in it the idea of the whole, yet 
each would surely die without the other. 
It is a wonderfully hard task, My Dear.” 

“I don’t see how you can!” suddenly 
exclaimed Christobel. 

The fairy burst into a laugh as wild and 
merry as the west wind. “Oh, it is easy, 
so easy.” 

“But — I thought you said it was hard.” 

“Did I? Well, that is when you think 
about it. To do it is so easy! You find it 
easy to grow, don’t you, My Dear? But if 
you stopped to think about it — to think 
what it really is to grow — I doubt if you 
could grow an inch in a thousand years. 
Oh, it is easy to do.” 

“And think of all those precious pollen 
grains wasted on the bees, who merely eat 
them up,” sighed Christobel. 


Apple Stems and Nectar Cups 3 7 

“Not wasted, you child of the blessed 
earth; not wasted; no, not wasted. Many 
extra pollen grains there must be, to make 
sure that some of them find the waiting 
ovules. And all the rest — how pleasant it 
is that many of them lie spread in the chalice 
of the flower, ambrosia for gauzy winged 
visitors. How can you call them wasted 
when they serve so lovely a use.” 


IX 


BREAD AND HONEY 

“X/OU are pleased with everything,” said 

I Christobel, laughing. “1 think you 
love to work.” 

“Love to work!” echoed the fairy with 
so sweet a laugh that a flash of sunshine 
seemed to break over the earth. “ I should 
think I do love to work! Why, do you 
know, I am work; I could not live a minute 
if I stopped working, neither could you, for 
that matter, though you may not know it. 
There is nothing so beautiful as work. 
Why, work, My Dear, is life itself, do you 
know that? But to return to ovules and 
pollen — yes, to make a pollen grain is like 
making a tree, a perfect tree, the size of a 
pollen grain.” 

“But is the pollen grain a little tree? 
How can it be when it is made of only one 
cell, while the tree has to be built up of 

38 


39 


Bread and Honey 

millions of cells of all shapes and sizes — 
at least that is the way my botany book 
puts it.” 

The fairy laughed until the leaves and 
flowers danced all over the apple tree. 

“ Now that is the hard part, if any part 
could be hard — to make a perfect tree and 
yet not make it at all! ” 

“But you don’t make a real tree; you 
make something that can grow into a tree,” 
reasoned Christobel. 

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked 
the fairy, shaking with merriment. 

“ I’m sure I don’t know,” admitted Chris- 
tobel, laughing too. “ But I am glad, since 
you don’t mind making it, that there is 
pollen enough for the bees and the wasps 
and all the dear little folks with wings; 
what would they do without it? and nectar, 
too, for them to drink and carry home to 
the hives. I wonder how apple-blossom 
honey tastes.” 

“ 1 have tasted it,” said the fairy, “many 
a time, but that will not help you, for I 
know you will have to taste for yourself. 


4 o 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

But this I can tell you, when you taste the 
fragrance of apple blossoms on your tongue 
and smell the warmth of a spring day and 
feel the sunshine of June in your heart, why 
then you may know you are eating apple- 
blossom honey.” 

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Christobel, “I 
must coax the bees for a taste! Father will 
not take away their early honey; he says 
they need it themselves, and so we have to 
wait for clover honey; apple-blossom 
honey! Perhaps some day the bees will 
give me a taste.” 

“And there is the incense to prepare,” 
continued the fairy; “ let us not forget that; 
the sweet perfumes that bear the invita- 
tions far and near to the friends of the 
flowers to come to the feast.” 

“Perfumery must be about as hard to 
make as the pollen, I should think,” said 
Christobel. 

“Oh, no,” laughed the fairy; “the fra- 
grance of the flowers is nothing at all.” 

“ But it is so small you can’t see it ! ” 

How the fairy laughed! “Unseen to 


4i 


Bread and Honey 

you, My Dear, but to me, well, as real as a 
ripe apple is to you. Size doesn’t count, 
you know. It is only the way you are made 
that makes other things seem large or small. 
Now you probably think that I am small? ” 
The fairy stopped and twinkled at Christo- 
bel, who turned quite red and began to 
stammer out something, but the fairy only 
laughed gaily and went on: “No, I am not 
small; and you are not large. Nothing is 
really large or really small; it all depends! ” 
And the lively little creature began to laugh 
again, and laughed until the clouds in the 
sky shone back as if laughing too. 


X 


APPLES AND APPLE SEEDS 

“nPHERE are a good many kinds of 
A apples,” said Christobel at last; “ even 
In this orchard there are quite a number. 
How can you remember to make each itself 
always? What is the difference, anyway? 
Now, what is the difference between — 
well, between a pippin and a Baldwin? We 
have both, you know, and they are as dif- 
ferent as can be.” 

The fairy laughed again until the apple 
blossoms danced on the tree and the west 
wind stooped suddenly down and kissed 
them. 

“ That really isn’t my concern,” she said, 
as soon as she had sobered down a little, 
“and I don’t know the secret, My Dear. 
Each apple tree can help itself, you know. 
If it couldn’t, I couldn’t help it. It remem- 
bers. What its parents were it remembers 
to become itself. It couldn’t grow without 


42 


Apples and Apple Seeds 43 

my help, and I couldn’t help it unless it 
could grow. Do you see? ” 

“Not very well,” said Christobel. 

“Well, at least you are not alone in that. 
Even grown people have difficulty. Apple 
seeds remember something. But sometimes 
an apple seed gets a new idea. Now don’t 
ask me how or where, for I don’t know. 
It gets it out of space, somehow. Space is 
full of ideas, you know. Indeed, space is 
nothing but ideas; all you need do is to 
leave an opening for them to leak in. Some 
apple seeds let in ideas. Then you get a 
new kind of apple.” 

“Is that the way it came about?” 
asked Christobel, opening her eyes in 
astonishment. 

“Well, yes and no. Sometimes it is the 
grown tree that gets the idea. Sometimes 
a tree will bear a new kind of apple on one 
of its limbs, and not on the others.” 

“Oh, I know about that,” said Christo- 
bel, eagerly. “One of our trees does that. 
One limb had a new kind of apple last year, 
but it wasn’t as good as the rest.” 


44 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Yes, these new things are sometimes 
better, sometimes worse. When they are 
better, they are likely to be cared for by the 
people and kept; where they are worse, 
nobody helps them to keep on, and in time 
they die out. Apples were not always what 
they are today,” the fairy went on. “ They 
were not always big and beautiful and sweet 
and juicy. They owe their present perfec- 
tion to man’s efforts. Would you like me 
to tell you how it came about ? ” 

“ Oh, do ! ” cried Christobel, eagerly. So 
the fairy went on. 

“Once upon a time apples were not large 
nor very juicy nor very good flavored. Oh, 
but they were sour and puckery and hard, 
too. Indeed, the best of them were little 
better than crab apples. I remember when 
they were like that — not a single really 
good apple in all the world. 

“Dear me!” exclaimed Christobel. 
“What did folks do for apples in those 
days? ” 

“ They went without,” laughed the fairy. 
“They went without a good many things 


Apples and Apple Seeds 45 

in those days. Well, as I was saying, there 
were only crab apples.” 

“ Where did the seeds come from for real 
apple trees to grow out of?” interrupted 
Christobel. 

“ That is just what I am coming to,” went 
on the fairy. “They did not come from 
anywhere, or rather they came from every- 
where. I just took the best trees and cared 
for them.” 

“You did it?” interrupted Christobel 
again. “ Why, I thought you just said — ” 

“Yes, I know I said that people did it, 
and so they did. Still, in spite of that, it 
was I who did it, though in rather a round- 
about way. You see, I put it into the minds 
of the people so that they watched the trees 
and saved the best and cared for them and 
kept on in this way until in course of 
time — oh, in thousands and thousands of 
years — men had orchards of fine apple 
trees, such as you have today. Oh, yes, by 
selection and care you can get almost any- 
thing you want in the way of an apple. 
Every family could have its own special 


46 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

apple, if it wanted to. You could have a 
new apple and give it your family name, if 
you wanted to.” 

“ Really?” asked Christobel. 

“To be sure you could.” 

“Could I have just the kind I wanted? ” 

“Within limits you could. Of course, 
you couldn’t start a new kind yourself. 
Nobody on earth could do that. But when 
a new kind appeared you could keep it. 
Right now there is a chance for you. On 
this very tree is a limb that bears wonder- 
fully good apples.” 

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Christobel. 
“ 1 know. It is the big limb over my head. 
It has such good apples every year! Father 
is going to take off some of the buds and 
plant them in another apple tree, and he 
says they will grow just as if they were 
on their own tree, and bear these good 
apples.” 

“ In time,” said the fairy, “ he could have 
a whole orchard of these good apple trees, 
and he could name them the Christobel 
apple if he wanted to.” 


Apples and Apple Seeds 47 

“ Dear me, so he could,” said Christobel. 
“ 1 never thought of that.” 

“Look out!” cried the fairy and van- 
ished, as a whole skyful of petals fell like 
snow over Christobel, who started and 
stared and then laughed merrily as she 
caught sight of Robert’s mischievous face 
looking down from the limb above her. 

“Tell me what the fairy said,” he de- 
manded. 

“ I will, if you won’t say I’ve been asleep.” 

“I won’t say it, no matter what I may 
think,” was the discreet reply. 


XI 


RIPE APPLES 


C HRISTOBEL watched all summer for 
the Apple-T ree Sprite, but although she 
did not see her again, she did see how 
the apples went on their accus- 
tomed course — growing dav^ 
day, the poorer ones falling^ * 
the ground, the good ones/ 
coming shaped and painte ' 
mellowed 
autumn 



Ripe Apples 


49 


leaves began to change color. When the 
earth was all in a blaze one splendid Octo- 
ber day, Christobel climbed into the crotch 
of the old apple tree, hoping that the fairy 
would come again, as she had hoped so 
many times before that summer. And this 
time the fairy did come. But Christobel 
hardly knew her, she had changed so. She 
was dressed all in red and gold, and her 
hair was fluffy like dandelion silk and her 
skin was as white as milk and her eyes like 
shining stars. 

“You see,” said the fairy, “my work is 
about done, and I am getting rested. I feel 
quite young again.” 

“You look so,” said Christobel, heartily. 
“But people generally look rested before 
they have done hard work, and tired after- 
wards.” 

“ Oh, people are different,” said the fairy 
with her merry laugh. “ It rests us to work, 
you know. I feel quite old and worn out 
in the spring after resting all winter, not 
that I rest entirely even then; but in the 
fall when my beautiful apples are all but 


So 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

finished, then is my very happiest time. 
You don’t know how it rests me just to go 
about and look at the apples on the trees.” 

“ I should think it would,” said Christo- 
bel, “but are you all done? ” 

“Not quite,” said the fairy. “You see 
most of the apples are yet on the trees. 
Unless the farmer comes and gathers them 
I shall have to loosen all the stems so they 
can fall to the ground where the seeds can 
grow.” 

“But the seeds don’t grow,” said Chris- 
tobel. “The hired man pulls up every- 
thing but the grass that grows under the 
apple trees.” 

“That is not my fault,” said the fairy, 
“ nor my concern. I have to stay about and 
loosen the apples when the time comes, if 
they are not taken off before I get around 
to it.” 

“I suppose,” said Christobel, “that you 
loosen the apples just as you did the 
petals? ” 

“Yes,” said the fairy, “but you can im- 
agine it takes more strength, or rather more 


Ripe Apples 51 

time to undo the end of that hard, woody 
stem. And now,” the fairy went on, “you 
people must look after the apple trees and 
save them from the canker grubs that are 
lying at their roots.” 

“Can you not do that, too?” asked 
Christobel. 

The fairy shook her head and sent spar- 
kles all through the air. “ No, indeed, the 
canker folks do not belong to my kingdom. 
I get the frost and the rain to help me con- 
quer sometimes, and sometimes the little 
fungus people, but they have their own 
affairs to attend to and are not always ready 
when I need them. You see, I can help the 
wild apple trees better, but these fine apples 
that man has made are very tender and 
require more care than I can give.” 

“So that is why father has to spray the 
trees and dig codling moths out of the roots 
and burn the tents of the caterpillars in 
early summer,” said Christobel. 

“ Exactly so,” said the fairy. 

“ It was very good of you to do so well 
by our orchard this year,” said Christobel. 


52 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ Now we shall have apples to eat all winter 
and a barrel of sweet cider and plenty of 
pies and apple sauce and some apples left 
to give away, and a great many for father 
to sell; yes, you have been very good to us. ,, 

“1 should like,” said the fairy, “to have 
your trees loaded with apples every year, 
but that I cannot do, for it is not the nature 
of the apple tree to bear without a resting 
year between.” 

“Orange trees do,” said Christobel, who 
had an aunt living in Florida who sent them 
a box of oranges every Christmas. 

“Orange trees are different,” said the 
fairy. “Apple trees have only learned to 
bear a full crop of apples every other year. 
You look and you will see the apple blos- 
soms bursting out of the buds at the end 
of last year's branches. Well, the next 
year, instead of apples, twigs grow, and out 
of these come again apples.” 

Christobel looked up into the apple tree 
over her head and it was covered all over 
with red apples, and they smelled so good 
she wanted to eat one. As she put out her 


Ripe Apples 53 

hand she heard her father's voice quite close 
to her ear. 

“See,” he said, laughing, “what a great 
big apple I have found lodged in the crotch 
of the tree! Shall I put it in the bottom of 
the barrel, or on top? ” and he caught her 
by the arm as though he were going to drop 
her down into the apple barrel. 

“Oh, on top!” screamed Christobel, 
laughing and struggling to get free. 

Yes, her father and his men had come to 
gather the apples, and her father was stand- 
ing on the rung of a tall ladder that reached 
way up in the tree. 

“ I didn't hear you put that ladder up at 
all,” said Christobel. 

“No, I should think not. Lazy bones! 
sleeping in the daytime like a little owl, and 
likely enough dreaming about apple-tree 
fairies.” 

But Christobel shook her head. She was 
sure she had not been dreaming, and, any- 
way, the fairy story, whether dreamed or 
not, was as true as could be. 


XII 


CHRISTOBEL PASSES HER EXAMINA- 
TION 

D AY after day Christobel’s father and 
the hired men picked ripe apples. 
When school was out Christobel and the 
boys helped. They picked up the apples 
fallen to the ground and 
ted them into the bar- 
ls standing ready. Then 
came old gray Dobbin with 
the wagon and pulled load 
after load away to the railway 
station. But only the apples that the men 
picked carefully from the trees were put 
|Q into the barrels to be carted away. 

wish I knew who was 
eat them,” thought 
tobel. “ How I hope 
^ little children 

l.d. the b >g. 



“How 
going to 
Chris 
the 



Christobel Passes Examination $$ 

crowded cities will like them. I wish they 
could see the dear trees they grow on.” 

The apples that fell to the ground were 
carefully sorted and only those without 
bruise or blemish were taken home to the 
cellar and stored away. 

“If any are bruised they will soon rot 
and spoil the rest,” father said. 

So into the cellar bins went the good 
apples, and when the work was done Robert 
called to his sister. 

“Come, Christobel,” he called; “come 
down cellar as fast as ever you can.” 

Christobel ran down the steps to the 
large dry and airy room where the apples 
were stored. 

“Did you ever smell anything to beat 
it?” demanded Robert. 

Christobel shut her eyes and drew in a 
long, blissful breath. “Nothing in the 
world smells sweeter to me than ripe 
apples,” she said. “My! my! doesn't this 
cellar smell good enough to eat! ” 

“ Now shut your eyes and don't peek,” 
said Robert loftily; “I am going to see if 


56 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

you can pass your apple examination. Will 
you promise not to peek ? Or shall I have 
to tie a handkerchief over your eyes? ” 

“ I promise/' laughed Christobel. So 
Robert turned her around three times, then 
led her a few steps and said, 

“ Stoop over a little and smell. What 
kind of apples are in this bin ? ” 

“Baldwins!" said Christobel promptly. 
Robert grunted assent and led her a little 
farther. 

“Now what? ” 


Christobel took one long ecstatic sniff — 
“ Spitzenbergs ! ” 



Christobel Passes Examination 57 

And so Robert led her around to all the 
bins and Christobel guessed right every 
time but one> The greenings were not ripe 
enough to perfume the air and Christobel 
called them something else. 

“Well,” said Robert, “you have passed 
very well. I will give you a graduating 
diploma, and you can have all the apples 
you want to eat all winter — all but 
greenings.” 

“ 1 can have all the apples I want without 
asking you, you old tease; they are father’s 
apples,” and Christobel began to spin 
around like a whirligig; “but I am glad I 
passed my examination,” she added, stop- 
ping and laughing. 

“So am I,” said Robert solemnly. “I 
am glad to be able to be proud of you.” 


XIII 


THANKSGIVING 

W HEN Thanksgiving came Christobel 
got up in the morning to find the 
ground all white with snow and big feath- 
ery flakes flying in the air. 

“Now for the fun!” she cried, jumping 
up and down. Right after breakfast she 
went out with the other children, Bennie 
and Robert and little Sue, and they threw 
snowballs, and drew each other on their 
new sleds and coasted down the long slope 
of the meadow while the wind came along 
with his icy switches and joined in the 
frolic and switched their cheeks until they 
were as red as fire. 

Then the aunts and uncles and cousins 
came to dinner, and oh, how good the 
Thanksgiving turkey tasted! And how 
much pie they all ate! a little piece of 
mince pie and a big piece of apple pie for 

S3 


Thanksgiving 59 

each child. Then there were games and 
fun and then the sleighs came with 
jingling bells and went away with the 
company. 

For supper they had apples baked before 
the open fire. Each person chose an apple 
and set it in front of the coals, and as it got 
soft on one side he turned it around and 
kept on turning it until it was soft all over 
and the juice began to sizzle out. When 
this happened he put the apple on a saucer 
and ate it with a spoon. If it was too sour 
a little sugar was sprinkled on it. 

But Christobel’s apple was not too sour. 
It was just right — just sweet enough, and 
just sour enough. You see she had chosen 
it from the fragrant bin that held the apples 
from the Baldwin tree in whose crotch she 
had lain while the Apple-Tree Fairy told her 
the story of her life work. 

“Father,” said Christobel, “tell us a 
story.” 

“Yes!” shouted all the children, “tell 
us a story!” 

“Well, what kind of story?” asked 


6o 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

father, beginning to peel another yellow 
apple, for he had already eaten one. 

“Let it be an apple story,” said Chris- 
tobel. 

“Yes, an apple story!” shouted the rest 
of the children. 

So father began. 


XIV 


THE APPLE STORY 

“/^VNCE upon a time some children lived 
with their father and mother in a 
very funny house. It stood out in the mid- 
dle of a lake on piles driven into the bottom 
of the lake. You could only get to it in 
boats, and there was a ladder that went 
from the water up to the door. They lived 
this way because it was long ago and they 
had to protect themselves from their ene- 
mies. There were no policemen and no 
laws and nobody to warn them of ap- 
proaching danger from man or beast. 



62 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

so long ago, and just how they lived we do 
not know, but we know some things they 
had, for they dropped them into the water 
and the mud covered them and caked hard 
around them and preserved them, and long, 
long after the lake had dried up and people 
were no longer obliged to live over the 
water to protect themselves, men went and 
dug where the lakes had been, and found 
the things that had so long lain buried. 
And what among other things do you 
suppose they found? ” 

“Tin soldiers!” shrieked Bennie, with 
his eyes popping out. 

“No, you remember this is an apple 
story, my son; they found apples buried in 
the mud.” 

“Were they fit to eat?” demanded 
Robert. 

“ No, not fit to eat, but nevertheless very 
valuable, for they told us just as though it 
had been printed in a book how in that 
long-ago time the Swiss Lake Dwellers had 
apples to eat, just as we have. Now it is 
time to say good-night.” 


The Apple Story 63 

“May I say a quotation first ?" de- 
manded Robert the tease as he tweaked one 
end of the big ribbon bow that adorned 
Christobel's head like an enormous butter- 
fly, and of which she was very proud. 

“ Well, what is it ? ” demanded Christobel 
suspiciously. 

“ ‘ How we dried apples swim/ ” 
squeaked Robert in a funny little voice, 
and made for the door only to be caught 
by father, who said he had a quotation, too, 
and repeated, “ ‘ A word fitly spoken is like 
apples of gold in pictures of silver.' ” 

Robert laughed. “I don't know which 
way to take that," he said. 

Then the children kissed their parents 
good-night and went off to bed, and they 
were so tired and sleepy after the fun in 
the snow and the big Thanksgiving dinner 
and the games they had played with their 
cousins that they hardly knew how they 
got to bed. 


A MIDNIGHT 
VISIT 


I T SEEMED to Christobel that she had 
only slept a few minutes when she was 
wakened by a gentle tug at her little finger. 

“What is it?” asked Christobel, sitting 
up and looking around. 

“ It is only I ; don’t be frightened ” — and 
there, if you please, on the corner of the 
pillow, all wrapped in a snowflake shawl, 
sat the Sprite of the apple tree. 

“ I declare! ” said Christobel, rubbing her 
eyes. “My! How rosy you are; as red 
and shiny as a Baldwin apple!” 

“Little to wonder at in that,” said the 
fairy with her own merry laugh that, how- 
ever, sounded quite faint and hollow as 
compared with her summer laugh. “ Any- 
64 


A Midnight Visit 65 

one who has to stay out in the snow with- 
out work enough to keep her from being 
tired may well turn red. But that is not 
the point. What I want to know is whether 
you would like to go out and see what I do 
to the apple tree in the winter time.” 

“That 1 would!” cried Christobel. “I 
would like it above all things, but I can’t. 
Mummy wouldn’t let me. Besides, I have 
on my nighty, and my feet are bare.” 

“Oh, that won’t matter,” said the fairy; 
“just let me wrap you up once in a thick 
snow mantle and you will be as snug as a 
bug in a rug. No cold in the right kind of 
snow mantle, I tell you. Are you sure 
your mother wouldn’t let you? ” 

“Perfectly sure,” said Christobel decid- 
edly. “ Mummy never lets me out in the 
night, not unless she or father has tight 
hold of my hand.” 

“Perhaps you don’t want to go?” 

“Oh, but I do!” said Christobel, almost 
ready to cry. 

“Well, that’s all right, then. You go 
back to bed and I’ll bring the tree here.” 


66 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“But I’m already in bed — ” began 
Christobel, but the fairy interrupted, 
“ Then stay there and watch.” And Chris- 
tobel saw the little old woman, for such the 
fairy had become again, jump out of the 
window and go across the snowy yard and 
over the snowy fence to where the apple 
tree stood up to its waist in snow, and with 
the snow piled like a cloak over all its 
branches, just as Christobel had seen it that 
morning when she was out coasting. 

The next thing she knew, the apple tree 
was right there in her own room, that had 
to be stretched a good deal to accommo- 
date it. 

“There now, Mummy won’t mind your 
getting up in the crotch right here in your 
own room. See how cozy I’ll make you,” 
and the little old woman took Christobel 
up and wrapped her in a warm woolly blan- 
ket that looked like snow but was as warm 
as toast, and set her up in the crotch. 

“Now look!” 

“Well, did you ever!” exclaimed Chris- 
tobel in delight, for the little old woman 


A Midnight Visit 67 

put her tiny fingers into a twig that became 
transparent like glass, and Christobel saw 
her building up oh, such tiny cells into such 
tiny, tiny buds, just under the bark of the 
twig, and enlarging the little buds that had 
been started the summer before on the ends 
of the twigs. 

“Ho!” she said, “this is my winter 
work; very slow, you see, for the growing 
material is all spread out so thin, and most 
of it has settled down into the roots to be 
safe from Jack Frost.” 

“ Do you mean the tree is really growing 
in the winter time? ” 

“ It looks so,” laughed the fairy. “You 
see I cannot do nothing, I should be tired 
to death, and perhaps I might forget how, 
so I do a little on warm days and after the 
apples are off in the fall. It is not much, 
but it helps, I can tell you. It helps to get 
things started before the spring rush comes 
on. What with new twigs and so many 
leaves and so many bunches of blossoms to 
look after all at once, I can tell you I am 
too busy to think of being tired. But there 


68 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

is such a thing as having too much to do, 
which is why I help along by doing what I 
can through the winter.” 

“I thought the sap went down into the 
roots for the winter,” said Christobel, 
thinking of her botany book. 

“So a good deal does, but not all, as you 
can see by bending a live twig and a dead 
one. There is a difference, isn’t there?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Christobel, “a great dif- 
ference; a dead twig snaps but a live one 
bends.” 

“Yes, that is so; and now if you look at 
the apple trees carefully you will see next 
year’s buds all started at the ends of the 
twigs. I did most of that during the sum- 
mer. But this year there will not be many 
flower buds — you remember why, 1 hope?” 

“Yes; because next year we must have 
new twigs for the year after’s flowers to 
grow on.” 

“Very good; but of course there were 
a few new twigs last year, so there will be 
a few blossoms this year. Now go to sleep, 
for that is all I have to show you tonight.” 



FATHER’S STORY 

T HERE is one thing about that dear old 
apple tree the fairy has not told you, I 
think,” said father the next evening after 
Christobel had told the family about her 
visit as they were sitting in the firelight just 
before bedtime. Father, mother, Robert, 
Bennie, and Christobel were there, but little 
Sue was not. She had to have her bread 

69 


70 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 


and milk and go to bed before supper every 
night, excepting Thanksgiving and Christ- 
mas and on her birthday. 

“Do tell us about it!” and the children 
gave their chairs a little hitch towards 
father. 

“ It happened long ago before any of you 
were born,” said father. “A boy was 
walking under the tree one day when it 
was in full bloom. He looked up into 
the flowers and one big bunch 
of them had turned into the 
loveliest fairy the boy had ever 
seen. Her skin wa: 
of apple blossoms, 

white and , /(r pink, 

and she 
wore a 
white 
dress 




7 1 


Father s Story 

with a pink sash, and had dear little slip- 
pers on her feet, and her eyes were as 
blue as the sky and as bright as the stars. 
She was so lovely that it made the boy’s 
heart beat fast, and he didn’t know 
whether to run away somewhere or stay 
where he was. Finally the fairy up in the 
tree spied him, and picked some apple blos- 
soms and threw them down at him, and 
he caught them and kissed them and — ” 

“Oh, Father!” interrupted mother, 
laughing and blushing. And how all the 
children laughed! They had heard that 
same story many times before, and it 
always ended that way — just at that point 
mother always said, “Oh, Father!” and 
father always stopped and would not go on. 

“It was mother up in the apple tree,” 
said Bennie. 

“Yes, mother was the fairy princess,” 
assented father. 

“And father,” said Robert, “was the 
fairy prince who came and carried her off 
out of the dragon’s den, for the tree was 
the dragon with its big coily limbs.” 


7 2 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ There is another apple story; please tell 
that,” begged Christobel. 

“Yes, about the apples of Hesperides,” 
shouted Robert and Bennie in chorus. 


XVII 


THE APPLES OF HESPERIDES 

W ELL/’ said father, “this is how it 
was. You know the Gardens of the 
Hesperides, way off in the sunset sea, the 
most beautiful deep blue sea with a flaming 
sky over it? And the islands themselves — 
how can anyone tell how splendid they 
were! as green as emerald with the soft 
grass that covered them, and the grass was 
dotted with primroses and crocuses that 
bloomed all the time, and there were daisies 
and buttercups and forget-me-nots and rose 
bushes along the walks, and there were 
lilacs and — ” 

“Don't forget the — ” interrupted 
Robert. 

“ Now you wait," said father; “ I’m com- 
ing to that. Where was I? Oh, yes; 
lilacs and soft green bushes in one corner 
all covered with red and white flat pods, 


73 


74 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

and each red pod had in it a red peppermint 
drop, and each white pod a white pepper- 
mint drop.” 

“Um!” said Christobel, smacking her 
lips. 

“And there were other bushes,” said 
Bennie, prompting his father. 

“Yes,” went on father, “there were 
other bushes that bore — let me see — 
small, round, brown potatoes.” 

“No!” shrieked all the children at once, 
“chocolate drops; you said chocolate 
drops.” 

“Oh, yes,” agreed father, “chocolate 
drops, so it was. And currant bushes that 
bore candy kisses, and vines that climbed 
over the windows of the beautiful ivory 
and glass palace that stood in the midst, 
and the vines that climbed over the chil- 
dren’s window bore beautiful blue flowers 
and pink ones and white ones that smelled 
as sweet as possible, and when a good child 
picked a flower, if the good child was hun- 
gry, the flower turned into a luscious gum 
drop, or a big juicy plum, or even a currant 


The Apples of Hesperides 75 

bun, but if a naughty child picked one, it 
crumbled into dry ashes that smelled like a 
sulphur match.” 

“Ugh!” groaned Christobel. 

“ But you may be sure,” went on father, 
“that the children in the beautiful palace 
were not often naughty. But the best part 
of the Island of Hesperides was the trees — 
such tall and elegant shapes as they had! 
There were tall palms that waved their 
great fronds all summer and kept the air 
cool, and other palms as beautiful as a 
dream that had great bunches of ripe dates 
on them all the time, but some had cocoa- 
nuts, and some bore little cans of guava 
jelly. And there were nut trees that bore 
peanuts — ” 

“Peanuts don’t grow on trees,” cried 
Bennie, holding up both hands in his eager- 
ness. 

“ But this is in the Island of the Hesper- 
ides, you know,” said his father seriously; 
“ great nut trees covered with nicely roasted 
peanuts, and others with salted almonds, 
and others with pecan candy bars, and 


76 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

others with wreaths of gold and scarlet 
flowers. 

“ But the best of all were the apple trees. 
They were very tall, and their limbs were 
so broad and stretched out so long that you 
could get up and take a walk on them when 
it rained and you did not want to wet your 
little pink slippers. I mean, of course, 
when the children in the ivory palace 
wanted to take a walk without wetting their 
little pink slippers. And these apple trees 
had wonderful leaves made of silver fili- 
gree that was always bright, and the silver 
leaves were enameled with green enamel in 
the sweetest way. You never saw any- 
thing so grand and wonderful as these 
apple trees in the Garden of the Hesperides. 
And the apples themselves were of pure 
gold, and had magic powers at that. 

“You can imagine that everybody 
wanted to get some of these apples. But 
not everybody could get them, because the 
apple trees stood in the midst of an 
enchanted garden surrounded by an en- 
chanted hedge and guarded by dragons — 


The Apples of Hesperides 77 

and dragons, you know, are always en- 
chanted.” 

“ Now come the heroes,” whispered Ben- 
nie, settling down with his chin on his fist. 

“Yes,” said father, “now come the 
heroes. But don’t you think bedtime has 
come along, too?” 

“No, father,” replied Bennie seriously, 
“you surely are mistaken. How impolite 
it would be to go and leave the heroes just 
as they arrive.” 

“Hm!” said father,. “I trust you will 
remain as polite as that when next you are 
requested to pick up chips for the wood- 
box.” 

Bennie’s eyes twinkled and father went 
on. “ Hercules, you know, had as one of 
his tasks getting some of the golden apples 
from the Garden of Hesperides. It was 
harder than other tasks because, besides 
getting them, he had to find out where they 
were kept.” 

“The queen of the gods had hidden 
them,” volunteered Christobel. 

“Yes,” added Robert, “Juno was queen 


78 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

of the gods, and she hid the lovely gold 
apples that had been given to her on her 
wedding day by the goddess of the earth. 
She was afraid of losing them, I suppose.” 

“Go on, father,” said Bennie. 

“Hercules did not know where to hunt 
for them,” father went on. “ So he finally 
crossed over to Mount Atlas in Africa, 
where the great Titan named Atlas was 
holding the heavens up on his shoulders.” 

“He had to stand there and hold up the 
heavens day and night, year in and year 
out,” added Christobel, “because he had 
warred against the gods, and this was his 
punishment.” 

“Yes,” assented father, “and Atlas was 
the father of the nymphs who guarded the 
golden apples of Hesperides. So Hercules 
thought that if anybody could help him to 
get some of the apples, Atlas could. When 
he told what he wanted, Atlas, whose back 
ached with holding up the heavens, said 
he would gladly go to the lovely islands in 
the sunset sea if only he could get some- 
body to hold up his burden, but heavy as 


The Apples of Hesperides 79 

it was he would not be willing to let go and 
have the heavens come crashing down and 
destroying everybody, himself included. 
Besides, he couldn’t leave if he wanted to, 
because if the heavens began to lean ever 
so little the gods would be after him, and 
no knowing what they would do next. It 
is better to endure the ills you have than 
fly to those you know not of, he said.” 

“ I thought Shakespeare said that,” com- 
mented Robert, who was in the highest 
class in school. 

“Yes, but couldn’t Atlas say it first?” 
demanded Bennie. “Go on, father.” 

“Well,” said father, “to make a long 
story short, Hercules offered to hold up the 
heavens for Atlas if he would go and get 
the apples. You may be sure Atlas was 
glad enough to shift his load to other shoul- 
ders, and when this was successfully done 
without loosening a single star or disar- 
ranging the moon, off went Atlas after the 
golden apples while poor Hercules had to 
stand like a statue holding up the heavens.” 

“Tell how Atlas got past the dragon, 


80 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

and all the things he saw, and how he 
finally got the apples/' begged Christobel. 

“Yes, do!" eagerly added the boys, 
for the children were always anxious to 
lengthen the story as bedtime approached. 

“No," said father, “you know all that 
as well as I do. You know how Atlas went 
to visit his daughters, and what a beautiful 
time he had; how the dragons licked his 
hands just like pet dogs because he was the 
father of the lovely nymphs whose slaves 
they were; and how Atlas, when the time 
came to return, casually put a few golden 
apples in his pocket when the dragons were 
not looking, and took them to Hercules. 
Of course he did not want to take up his 
load again, any more than you want to go 
to bed, but circumstances made it neces- 
sary, just as circumstances now make it 
necessary for all of you to be off to bed — 
so good-night and happy dreams." 


XVIII 


MORE STORIES 

tlf I *HERE are other apple stories,” said 

A Christobel the next time they were sit- 
ting together about the fire. It was a 
snowy afternoon and each one had a big 
yellow apple to eat. They had all chosen 
bright yellow Pippins in honor of the 
golden apples of Hesperides. 

“Yes, there is the apple of discord,” 
said mother, looking up from her sewing 
basket. 

“Yes,” assented Christobel reluctantly, 
“we know too much about that. It got 
thrown in amongst us this morning when 
we all went to quarrelling over who should 
first have the new magazine.” 

“But the mythological story is much 
prettier!” declared Robert. “Tell it, 
Mummy.” 

“You know how it came about,” began 

81 


82 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

mother. “ Minerva, the goddess of wis- 
dom, Venus, the goddess of love, and Juno, 
queen of the gods, were once at a splendid 
wedding where all the gods and goddesses 
were invited excepting the goddess of dis- 
cord, who was so crabbed and ugly that no- 
body wanted her about. But she was very 
angry at not being invited, and came any- 
way, and, as generally happens when she 
is about, trouble began. When the guests 
were all enjoying themselves, and Hebe 
was passing about the delightful nectar in 
crystal cups, and everybody was taking a 
second slice of ambrosia, the ugly goddess 
of discord threw a golden apple among 
them with this inscription engraved on one 
side: 'For the fairest.’ 'This must be 
meant for me,’ said Venus, blushing. She 
had reason to think so, as she was called 
also the goddess of beauty. 

"'1/ said Juno, who had been greatly 
flattered by the gods, 'surely think it be- 
longs to me/ and then Minerva, the god- 
dess of wisdom, who showed herself any- 
thing but wise in this matter, put out her 


More Stories 


83 

hand and took the apple as if to look at it, 
and then hid it in her sleeve, saying, ‘ I am 
sure it was meant for me.’ 

“Upon this the blessed gods all took 
sides, so that it was necessary to get the 
matter decided. Jupiter, in his position as 
king, could have decided on the spot, but 
he did not want to, as you can well imagine, 
for by favoring one of them he would 
offend the two other lovely goddesses. So 
he told them to go to the beautiful shepherd 
Paris, who was watching his flocks on 
Mount Ida, and get him to decide. It 
seems that the three goddesses tried all they 
could to buy the favor of Paris, each 
promising him the best within her gift, if 
he would decide in her favor.” 

“ Minerva promised that he should be- 
come a great warrior and win deathless 
fame and glory,” said Christobel. 

“Juno promised jewels and gold and 
power over great nations,” added Bennie. 

“And Venus promised that he should 
have the most beautiful wife in all the 
world,” went on Robert, for they all knew 


84 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

the story quite well, having heard it often 
before. 

“Yes,” said mother, “and you know 
who won, for of course Paris gave the apple 
to Venus, which was fair enough, for she 
was the goddess of beauty.” 

“But the others were offended,” said 
Bennie, “and made up their minds to pay 
Paris off for slighting them and giving the 
prize to Venus.” 

“Yes, go on, Bennie,” and mother smiled 
at him. 

“Well, Venus made Paris run away with 
Helen of Troy, who was the most beauti- 
ful woman in the world, and the conse- 
quence of that was the Trojan War which 
we read all about last winter.” 

“Yes, indeed; what a good time we had 
over that Trojan War,” and Robert laughed 
gleefully at the memory. 


XIX 


ATALANTA 

T HERE is another pretty apple story 
taken from mythology/’ saying which 
father settled down and the children 
gathered about him. “I mean the one 
about Atalanta.” 

“Yes, yes, tell us,” begged the children, 
all but little Sue who was too busy picking 
the seeds out of the core of her apple to 
bother about people so far distant as the 
old gods and goddesses. 

“She will listen when she is older,” said 
father, and began the story of Atalanta. 

“Atalanta was a beautiful huntress who 
rejected all suitors for her hand because an 
oracle had foretold that if she married, dire 
misfortune would befall her. As she was 
beautiful and high-born she had many suit- 
ors, and to escape them all she made a 
decree that she would wed the hero who 
85 


86 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

should win a footrace with her, but who- 
soever tried and failed should be put to 
death. You can imagine she was not 
troubled with many suitors after that! Still, 
occasionally some rash youth would try, 
and always met his fate because nobody 
could outrun Atalanta. But one day Hip- 
pomenes, the umpire, fell so in love with 
the beautiful huntress that he decided to 
try his own luck, although he had just 
watched some other youths defeated and 
condemned to death. 

“Well, never mind, he would try any- 
way. He was so in love that he felt he 
would die without her, so it would be more 
glorious to die trying to win her. 

“Atalanta felt very sorry that such a 
beautiful youth as Hippomenes should per- 
ish for her sake, yet, if he would, he would, 
and she could not help it. And so they 
started as fleet as the wind. But just as 
their feet left the ground, Hippomenes ad- 
dressed a prayer to Venus, the goddess of 
love, begging her to help him. 

“ Now, Venus was sitting in a lovely gar- 


Atalanta 


87 

den in the island of Cyprus when the prayer 
came. It was warm and sweet on this her 
own island, and behind her shone the ivory 
pillars of her temple. When the prayer 
came flying in like a breathless bird, she 
looked out over the sea where Hippomenes 
and Atalanta were just starting on the fate- 
ful race, and the heart of the goddess was 
moved with pity for the beautiful youth. 
So she reached up to a golden tree covered 
with golden apples, whose branches hung 
over her head, the leaves of pure gold shel- 
tering her from the golden rays of the sun. 
She gathered three apples wondrously 
beautiful and of pure gold and put them 
into Hippomenes’ hand and whispered to 
him how to use them. 

“Like two swift arrows, Hippomenes 
and Atalanta sped over the course. They 
seemed to fly or float along, so lightly did 
their feet touch the earth. Impelled by 
love, Hippomenes seemed in fair way to 
win, the onlookers cheered, and Atalanta 
herself half forgot her vow and almost 
hoped that he would win. 


88 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ But the race was long and Hippomenes 
began to lose breath when, with a strong 
effort, he threw one of the golden apples 
right in front of Atalanta who, astonished 
at its beauty, stayed her steps a moment to 
pick it up. When she heard the uproar of 
the on-lookers and discovered that Hippo- 
menes had passed her in the race, she shot 
forward faster than ever and soon outdis- 
tanced him. But again he threw an apple, 
and again Atalanta picked it up. Thus it 
happened even at the third time, when they 
had almost reached the goal. Prompted 
by Venus, Atalanta could not help stopping 
just one second to secure the beautiful 
apple — and so Hippomenes won race and 
bride. And all by help of the golden apples 
out of the garden in Cyprus.” 

“But misfortune did overtake Atalanta 
just as the oracle had said,” added Bennie. 

“Yes,” assented father. “The lovers 
were so happy together that they forgot to 
render honor and thanks to Venus, who, 
growing indignant at their neglect, caused 
Cybele to change them into a lion and 


Atalanta 


89 

lioness. Cybele having done this, yoked 
them to her chariot, as you can see in any 
Greek mythology or other picture book of 
the old gods.” 

.“ Wasn’t Pomona the goddess of ap- 
ples? ” asked Bennie. 

“She was the goddess of fruits,” an- 
swered father, “and apple trees were 
among her choicest possessions, but she 
had also peaches and pears and grapes and 
other fruits in her orchards.” 


XX 


A NORTHERN APPLE STORY 

“X TEARLY all the stories we have had this 
1 > winter belong to the Greek and Ro- 
man gods,” said Robert to his father one 
evening. 

“Yes,” was the reply, “and apples 
belong very specially to the cold north 
lands.” 

“Oh, yes,” added Robert, “and the 
Northmen had their apple stories, too, as 
pretty as any. Tell us the story of Idun, 
Father.” 

“Oh, please do, Father!” begged Chris- 
tobel and Bennie in a breath. So father 
went on with the story of Idun, who, as 
you of course know, was the beautiful 
Norse goddess of immortal youth. She 
was the daughter of the dwarf blacksmith 
Ivald, who lived in the bowels of the earth. 
But Idun was allowed to visit the earth 


90 


9i 


A Northern Apple Story 

from time to time, and wherever she passed 
leaves sprouted from the bare tree twigs, 
and grass and flowers sprang up under her 
feet. 

“ Idun was the personification of spring, 
you remember,” began father. 

“And she was married to the beautiful 
god of poetry and song,” added Bennie. 

“Yes, the god Bragi had a magical 
golden harp,” went on Robert, “and the 
music that came from it was so lovely that 
at the sound the trees began to bud and 
blossom, and flowers started up every- 
where in the grass.” 

“They lived with the rest of the gods 
at their home in Asgard, I remember that 
much,” said Christobel. 

“The Northern gods lived in Asgard, 
but the Greek gods lived — where? ” asked 
father. 

“On Mount Olympus,” promptly an- 
swered Robert. 

“Well,” continued father, “the gods and 
goddesses loved Idun for her beauty and 
gentleness, and also because of the mag- 


92 The AppJe-Tree Sprite 

ical apples which she kept in a casket and 
which had the power of conferring youth 
and beauty upon whomever ate of them.” 

“Even the gods had to eat Idun’s apples 
to keep young,” put in Christobel. 

“Yes, and no matter how many she took 
out of her casket, just as many still re- 
mained in it. I should like to know what 
became of that casket,” said Robert, lift- 
ing little Sue up to his knee where she 
snuggled her golden head against his breast 
and listened to the story. 

“Everybody wanted the apples, and no 
wonder,” added Bennie. “Now, go on, 
Father, and we will keep still.” 

“Well,” said father, “one day Idun with 
her precious casket was stolen and carried 
off by a great eagle.” 

“It was Thiassi, the storm giant, who 
came in the shape of an eagle,” said Robert. 

“Yes,” added father, “and do you re- 
member how it happened? ” 

“It was all the fault of that wicked, mis- 
chievous Loki, who was always getting 
somebody in trouble,” said Bennie. 


A Northern Apple Story 93 

“Yes,” assented father, “Loki and two 
of the gods were tired and hungry one day 
after having wandered about a long time 
on the earth. So they killed an ox and 
tried to cook it. But although the fire 
burned brightly the meat would not cook. 
They finally discovered that it was the fault 
of a great eagle who sat on a tree watch- 
ing them. Yes, he had used magic to keep 
the meat from cooking; that he admitted; 
but if they would give him all he could eat 
he would remove the spell. So they prom- 
ised, and soon the meat was beautifully 
roasted. Then the eagle demanded so 
much of it for his share that Loki in a rage 
began to beat him with a stick.” 

“Loki forgot that he was up against 
a past master in magic,” laughed Robert. 

“ But he was soon reminded,” added 
father, “for the stick stuck fast to the eagle 
and Loki could not for the life of him let 
go of his end of it.” 

“So off flew the eagle, stick, Loki, and 
all,” put in Bennie. 

“Yes,” said father, “off they went, and 


94 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

Loki could not get free until he had made 
a solemn promise to bring Idun with her 
magic apples to where Thiassi, the great 
storm giant, could get possession of her 
and her fruit. Once free, Loki hastened 
back to Asgard and set about planning 
what he could do to keep his promise. At 
last, one day when the minstrel Bragi was 
away from home, Loki lured Idun outside 
of Asgard by telling her to come and see 
some apples he had found growing on a 
tree not far away, and that were just like 
her magic apples.” 

“What a goose Idun was!” exclaimed 
Christobel indignantly. 

“ It is a good thing she was,” said Robert 
slyly, “or there wouldn’t have been any 
story! Go on, Father.” 

“No sooner was Idun outside than Loki 
went off and left her, and Thiassi, the 
great storm giant, in the form of an eagle, 
swooped down and carried her off to his 
icy home in the northern mountains, where 
the winds moaned and the wolves howled. 
Idun,’ as you can imagine, was very un- 


A Northern Apple Story 95 

happy. She pined for home and friends 
and became cold and pale.” 

“Thiassi’s home was in the Land of 
Winter,” said Robert, “and he kept Idun 
until it was time for spring to come again.” 

“ But she wouldn’t give Thiassi the least 
little taste of her apples,” said Christobel, 
“ and I am glad of it. The cruel old giant 
wanted to become young and beautiful, 
but she wouldn’t give him so much as a 
taste.” 

“Yes, winter wanted to change into 
spring,” chimed in Robert, “and I don’t 
blame him.” 

“At last the gods made Loki go and fetch 
Idun and her apples back,” said Bennie. 

“That was a trip the old rascal didn’t 
care for,” chuckled Robert, “but it wasn’t 
so hard after all, because he borrowed the 
goddess Freya’s falcon plumes to help 
him.” 

“No sooner had he put them on than 
he turned into a strong-winged falcon,” 
added Bennie. 

“He snatched Idun up in his talons and 


96 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

changed her into a nut,” went on father, 
“ and so flew home to Asgard with her.” 

“The gods were glad to get her back 
and have some of her apples for dessert,” 
said Christobel, “for they were getting to 
look quite old and wrinkled.” 

“I can tell you something about that 
story,” said Robert; “it is a nature myth. 
Idun represents spring. She is carried 
away into the cold winter and stays until 
the earth looks quite old and spent. Then 
she comes back and the flowers bloom and 
youth returns to the earth. The nut is a 
seed and represents fruitfulness.” 

“It is a pretty story, anyway,” said 
Bennie. 

“The apple,” added father, “was an 
emblem of fruitfulness with Northern 
peoples.” 

“ I know where the magic apples grew,” 
said Christobel. “They grew on the tree 
of life; the Norns watched over them and 
allowed no one but Idun ever to pick 
them.” 


XXI 


OTHER APPLES 

^r-pHERE are a great many kinds of ap- 

1 pies,” said Robert gaily, “magic apples 
and gold apples and apples of Sodom — ” 

“That look so beautiful on the tree,” 
interrupted Bennie, “but turn to dust and 
ashes when you eat them.” 

“And there is the apple of your eye,” 
put in Robert mischievously. “Father, 
how did the eyeball come to be called the 
apple of the eye? ” 

“ Doubtless because of its shape,” replied 
father; “and, because it is something we 
value very highly, people finally spoke of 
a very precious possession as the apple of 
the owner's eye. A greatly loved son is 
sometimes spoken of as the apple of his 
father's eye.” 

At this Robert winked at Christobel, and 
tapped his own chest, and she laughed and 

97 


98 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

whispered, “You conceited old goose,” 
then said aloud, “ And there are the apples 
of the garden of Eden. They grew on the 
tree of knowledge from which Eve ate and 
gave some of the apples to Adam, in pun- 
ishment for which they were both turned 
out to wander over the earth.” 

“The Bible doesn’t say they were ap- 
ples,” said father. 

“But the ‘fruit’ must have been because 
it was so tempting,” cried Christobel. 

“And there are May apples which are 
not apples at all,” added Bennie, “and 
people used to call tomatoes love apples, 
and grow them in their flower gardens as 
curiosities.” 

“Yes, and there are winter apples,” said 
Robert, jumping up and dancing about 
the room. “Let’s have some. We have 
talked enough about false apples, and my 
teeth are just aching to get into a real one,” 
and he clattered down cellar with a pan to 
see what he could find. 


XXII 


SPRING COMES AGAIN 

Y OU may be sure that when spring be- 
gan to trail her fresh green robes over 
the earth, Christobel was on hand to watch 
the apple tree. 

“I should like,” she thought one warm 
day as she reclined in her old seat in the 
crotch, “I should like to see just how the 
apple blossoms are made.” 

“Shut up your eyes tight, then,” said a 
familiar voice, and as Christobel did so 
there sat the little old woman looking very 
little and old and tired because she had just 
.spent such a long winter doing next to 
nothing. Even her cheeks looked a little 
withered and were pale pink instead of 
bright red. 

“You look tired and not very well,” said 
Christobel; “I am afraid it will tire you to 
talk to me.” 


99 


IOO 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Goodness, child!” and the little old 
woman began to laugh, “something to do 
is just what I need. It tires you out much 
faster to do too little, I can tell you, than 
to do too much. Even people who do too 
little grow old inside and out. Now I never 
grow old inside, for I can always look ahead 
and see plenty of lovely work coming, but 
I can’t help getting old and shrivelled out- 
side. However, that is neither here nor 
there. Spring has come with her gold and 
diamonds, and I am beginning to feel bet- 
ter already, for you know I work all sum- 
mer with gold and diamonds — such pretty 
work!” and the little old woman really 
began to grow young and pretty again, 
right under Christobel’s eyes. 

“I suppose your gold is what we call 
sunshine, and your diamonds are raindrops 
and dewdrops,” ventured Christobel. 

“I suppose so, too,” merrily answered 
the Sprite; “but, let me tell you, this gold 
and these diamonds are a million times bet- 
ter than hard gold and diamonds to those 
who know how to use them. In short, you 


IOI 


Spring Comes Again 

might have all the gold and diamonds that 
are buried away in all the caverns of the 
earth, and you would soon perish and die 
were it not for my kind of gold and dia- 
monds. But now watch !” and the fairy 
took a sunbeam and a dewdrop in her tiny 
fingers and twined them together with a 
little sap from the tree and made exquisite 
little cells out of which she built up the 
petals of an apple blossom. How her fin- 
gers flew! all of them at once, and the 
thumbs, too, for at the same time that she 
was making the petals she had also to 
weave together the pistil with its little 
ovules, and the stamens with their anthers 
full of pollen dust. 

“See,” she said, “now you must look 
through a fairy microscope; or no, I will 
change your eyes so you can see; that will 
be better,” and she touched Christobel’s 
eyes and they began to see quite clearly 
the smallest things, just as if each apple 
blossom cell had been an inch long. 

“My, how lovely!” cried Christobel. 

“Lovely!” echoed the fairy, and began 


102 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

to laugh so merrily and so prettily and so 
heartily that Christobel began to laugh, too. 
But even while laughing the fairy was not 
idle, but kept all her fingers flashing as 
quick as lightning among the apple blos- 
som cells that she kept dividing and en- 
larging and dividing and enlarging and al- 
ways filling full of fresh new sap so as to 
have it handy to weave in with .the sun- 
beams and raindrops. 

“ Wouldn’t it be easier to make the cells 
the right size at first, instead of unmaking 
them and making them over again all the 
time?” asked Christobel. 

“You don't understand," said the fairy; 
“the apple blossoms are growing; that is 
the way it has to be. I cannot get enough 
sap to do it all at once, even if 1 could do 
it that way. Besides, whatever is worth 
doing at all is worth doing well, and if I 
could make an apple blossom in a minute 
I dare say it would be a flimsy affair not 
worth looking at; then nobody would really 
value it. Besides, from such a flower, how 
could one possibly build up a good apple 


Spring Comes Again 103 

with a tough core and perfect seeds? No, 
slow and sure’s the rule for me,” and the 
dainty Sprite continued to twinkle in among 
the tiny cells with her wonderful weaving. 
And Christobel, looking, saw her fashion 
the tiny core with the tiny ovules in it, all 
of which was not so tiny to her, you under- 
stand, because of the new kind of eyesight 
the fairy had bestowed upon her. 


XXIII 


WHAT IS A FLOWER? 

1 SEE,” said Christobel, after watching 
intently for a few minutes as the soft 
little core grew and began to harden under 
the fairy’s touch, and the tiny ovules 
took shape within it; “I see now just 
how it it is: The ripe apple is really the 
seed pod; it is the grown up and finished 
cradle; but now it is just part of the 
flower.” 

“What is a flower, anyway? ” asked the 
fairy, with a merry twinkle in her bright 
little eyes. 

“Oh,” said Christobel, promptly, “it is 
something pretty to look at, and sweet to 
smell of, that folds about the little seed 
cradle.” 

The fairy laughed gaily and kept on 
working. “What am I making?” she 
asked at last. 


104 


What Is a Flower? 105 

“You are making five little knobs on top 
of the seed pod/’ said Christobel, promptly, 
then added, “ I believe they are the sticky 
stigmas, only they are not sticky yet; but 
they will be sticky, won’t they? ” 

“ Of course,” laughed the Sprite ; “ when 
the time comes they will be sticky enough. 
Otherwise how could the pollen grains stick 
to them? ” 

“And you are making stamens, too!” 
exclaimed Christobel. “I know they are 
stamens. I see the little stems with the 
anther boxes on top, and oh, such crowds 
of tiny pollen grains inside the anther 
boxes! I wonder why you make so many 
stamens.” 

“1 don’t know why,” said the Sprite; 
“that is the secret of the apple blossom — 
five petals it wants and five calyx lobes and 
five cradle cells and five stigmas, but there 
the demand for five stops short, and there 
must be a great number of stamens. That 
is the way with apple blossoms. And now, 
My Dear, I will tell you what a flower is, 
and don’t you forget it. A flower is the 


106 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

lovely cradle of life. It is the young ovules 
in the pod and the magic pollen that helps 
to make the seeds. It is these precious 
things, ovules and pollen, all safely tucked 
away, and wrapped up in the tender, fra- 
grant petals until the time for unfolding 
comes. That is a flower, My Dear.” 

As the fairy worked away, Christobel 
noticed that the petals were very small and 
wrapped closely about each other and all 
enclosed in the hard green calyx lobes. As 
they became larger under her magic fingers 
they were still kept carefully wrapped to- 
gether until they were full grown and 
peeped out from the calyx lobes all sweetly 
flushed with pmk. 

“You have made buds!” exclaimed 
Christobel at last. 

“Yes, they are flower buds,” assented 
the fairy. “You see, the ovules and the 
pollen are not quite ready, and I must keep 
them all nicely covered up. When pollen 
and ovules are ripe and ready — Oh, you 
will see something then! — but maybe you 
are tired; maybe you have seen enough? ” 


What Is a Flower? 107 

“ Oh, dear ! ” cried Christobel. “ No, no, 
go on! ” 

“Very well,” said the fairy; “it is for- 
tunate you feel as you do, for you are now 
about to see the loveliest thing in all the 
world, at least so I think. Did you ever 
see a bud unfold into a flower?” 

“ I never did,” said Christobel. 

“ Well, now look,” and the fairy breathed 
upon a pink bud, in a cluster of other buds. 
Softly she breathed, then very slowly the 
bud began to move; it swelled a little and 
a little more, and then the tops of the petals 
opened and showed the yellow stamens 
and the pearly chalice in which they lay. 
The young flower trembled a little, then 
the anther cells opened. A cloud of finest 
dust was caught up by the breeze, a cloud 
of finest dust that danced in the sunbeams 
playing about the flower. The air was sud- 
denly filled with fragrance, golden light 
flooded the earth, and Christobel thought 
she heard music trembling in the air. 

She looked at the flower with breathless 
delight while the fairy watched her with 


108 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

shining eyes. “You have seen a wonder- 
ful thing,” she said; “you have seen a 
flower open. Remember how sweet it is, 
Oh child! You, too, will blossom like a 
flower one day. Keep sweet and pure, Oh 
human flower of the blessed earth, keep 
out the canker worms, keep the ugly, slimy 
snails away, shut out the loathesome worms 
and bugs, shut out all evil thoughts and 
base desires, keep your heart as lovely as 
the heart of this perfect flower!” Then 
suddenly changing her tone she said: 

“How my bright pollen dances in the 
sunshine! there is enough of it, and it is 
good, for it is truly made.” 


XXIV 


THE COMING OF THE BEES 

N OW that pollen must fly to the 
sticky stigma and stay there,” said 
Christobel. 

“Yes, some grains must fall upon the 
ready stigma. Do you know what happens 
then?” “Tell me!” begged Christobel. 

“It is the most wonderful part of the 
story,” said the Sprite. “The living part 
of the pollen grain finds its way down to 
the sleeping ovule. They unite together, 
and then begin to grow into the perfect 
apple seed.” 

“ The ovule couldn’t grow into a seed 
without the pollen,” said Christobel. 

“ No, and the pollen could not grow with- 
out the ovule. They depend upon each 
other. But when they unite — Oh, then 
the apple begins to grow ! The seed forms 
and the apple grows.” 


109 


I IO 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ Wouldn’t the apple go on and grow 
anyway? ” 

“No, indeed; unless the seeds develop 
the apple cannot grow. If the pollen grains 
cannot reach the ovules in the flower, then 
all must perish. And, do the best I can, it 
sometimes happens that pollen grain and 
ovule do not meet. Sometimes there comes 
a heavy rainstorm just when I have opened 
all the apple blossoms, and the rain washes 
away the pollen so that it is quite lost, and 
then there are no apples, even if it happens 
to be apple year.” 

“How trying!” exclaimed Christobel. 

“You may well say so,” went on the 
fairy. “Yes, trying it certainly is. But if 
wind comes without rain, that is the best 
thing that could happen, for the dry pollen 
is then blown about and covers the sticky 
stigmas, and that is what is needed.” 

“But what about the bees?” asked 
Christobel. “I thought they carried the 
pollen? ” 

“They do their best,” said the fairy, 
“ but I tell you, a hard rain spoils it. Pollen 


1 1 1 


The Coming of the Bees? 

is good only a little while, you know.” 
“No, I didn’t know it,” said Christobel. 

“Well, it’s the truth,” replied the fairy. 
“ And sometimes there is a cold, still time, 
when the insects stay at home, and the 
wind does not help. If this lasts long 
enough when the apple blossoms are ready, 
why, they do not get the pollen in time, 
and again — no apples.” 

“ Can you not put the pollen on 
yourself? ” 

The fairy shook her head a little sadly 
as she answered, “No, I can only make 
things. 1 can do nothing with them after 
they are once made. I can make the ovules 
and the pollen, but I cannot move the pol- 
len — that right belongs elsewhere.” 

“You are not a perfect fairy, then,” said 
Christobel, not meaning to be unkind, but 
only so interested to know. 

“No,” said the fairy, brightening up; “I 
am not, but you see no one is perfect. No 
one can do everything without help. It 
would be a very stupid world if everybody 
could do everything. You see, life is just 


1 1 2 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

like this apple blossom — every part of it 
has to be woven together. But it takes 
a great many weavers, all working in and 
out with each other, and that is why it is 
so beautiful. The sun has to weave the 
golden heat rays; the sea has to supply the 
clouds with rain, and moisture for the air, 
and dew for the thirsty earth; the wind and 
the insects have to carry the pollen; your 
father has to protect the roots and leaves 
from destructive insects. Yes, indeed, 
many must work together to complete 
anything in the world.” 

“Yes,” said Christobel, “father has to 
gather the apples, the hired man has to 
press out the cider, the cook has to peel the 
apples, mother has to make the pies and 
apple sauce — oh, dear me, it is all a golden 
network, just like that beautiful network 
your fingers are making the apple blossom 
out of.” 

“Yes,” said the fairy, “life is a golden 
network woven by many weavers. No one 
can do everything alone by himself. That 
is why it is so beautiful,” 


SUMMER EVENINGS 

T HE Sprite told Christobel a great many 
lovely stories that springtime, and 
Christobel told them over again when the 
family were sitting together on the porch 
after supper. 

“ It pays to go to sleep in the apple tree,” 
said Robert, slyly, but as it always offended 
Christobel to have this said, he did not say 
it very often, because when she was of- 
fended she would not tell any more stories 
that night. 

“ It doesn’t matter anyway,” said mother 
to comfort her; “fairies are just as able to 
come when we are asleep as at any other 
time.” 

“1 believe they are more apt to,” said 
father, with a twinkle in his eye. 

1 13 


1 14 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ It is strange that pollen dust can decide 
what kind of apple is to grow,” said Bennie, 
the peacemaker. “The pollen grains are 
so very small.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Christobel, forgetting 
to be offended, “size doesn’t count. The 
Apple-Tree Sprite says size doesn’t count 
at all. A pollen grain is all marked and 
carved in the loveliest manner, although it 
is so little you can scarcely see it without 
a microscope. But if you were the size of 
a pollen grain, it would seem very large, 
and you could see, oh, so much in it that 
you can’t see at all now. The markings 
that we see with the microscope would then 
look quite coarse, and no doubt there would 
be finer lines and spots that we can’t begin 
to see now.” 

“ It seems to me I have heard father say 
something very much like that,” began 
Robert teasingly, but father interrupted 
by saying to Bennie, “You were not 
quite right, my boy, when you said the 
pollen decided what kind of apple it was 
to be.” 


Summer Evenings 


“5 

“ Pippin pollen makes pippin apples,” 
said Bennie, triumphantly, then he laughed. 
“I was almost forgetting about the ovule; 
that of course has a word to say, too.” 

“I should think so!” exclaimed Chris- 
tobel. 

“ If the ovule of a pippin receives pippin 
pollen, then, ho for pippin apples!” sang 
out Robert. 

“But if the ovule of a pippin apple re- 
ceives winesap pollen, then what? ” Bennie 
put in. 

“That,” said father, laughing, “would 
depend upon whether the pollen or the 
ovule succeeded in impressing itself most 
strongly upon the growing seed, and upon 
whether the pippin flower did not reject the 
winesap pollen entirely in order to receive 
pippin pollen. It is not often one finds any 
but pippin apples on a pippin tree, no 
matter how industriously the bees may 
bring pollen from other varieties of apple 
trees.” 

“Plants inherit from the pollen just as 
much as from the seeds — didn’t the fairy 


1 1 6 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

tell you that?” asked Robert, tossing a 
clover blossom at Christobel. 

“No, Mister Robert!” exclaimed Chris- 
tobel, triumphantly; “The fairy didn’t tell 
me any such nonsense as that. She told 
me that the plant inherits from the pollen 
just the same as from the ovule!” 

“ Bravo, Christobel! ” cried father, laugh- 
ing and clapping his hands. “You caught 
him that time.” 

“I don’t quite understand,” said Bennie. 

“Can you explain it?” asked father, 
turning to Christobel. 

“Why, yes, I think so. The ovule isn’t 
exactly a seed. It is the little soft begin- 
ning of a seed. It cannot develop into a 
seed until a pollen grain unites with it. But 
when the pollen grain joins the ovule, then 
it begins to grow into a seed — isn’t that 
right? ” 

“Yes, that is quite right. And when the 
seed is once formed, the fate of the ovule 
is sealed. The pollen cannot again affect 
it. It is only the ovule that can be fer- 
tilized by the pollen. You remember,” 


Summer Evenings 117 

added father, turning to Christobel, “that 
the union of a pollen grain with an ovule 
is called 'fertilization.’ ” 

“The pollen fertilizes the ovule, and the 
ovule is fertilized by the pollen,” said 
Bennie. 

“Just so,” agreed father. 


XXVI 


THE IDEA OF THE TREE 
HE fairy showed me just how the 



A ovule is fertilized, ” said Christobel, 
casting a defiant look at Robert. “ It 
seemed just as if there was a little tree 
made out of mist in each little ovule. The 
fairy called it the idea of a tree.” 

“ Father said — ” began Robert, but 
father’s hand suddenly put over his mouth 
smothered the rest of the speech, whatever 
it was. “Go on, Christobel,” said father, 
and she continued. 

“The little mist tree was exactly like the 
mother tree, the same bark, the same 
leaves, the same apples, with the same color 
and flavor and shape. Only this little mist 
tree could not grow at all until a pollen 
grain came and joined it, and each little 
pollen grain had a little mist tree in it, and 
the mist tree was just like the tree the pol- 


The Idea of the Tree 119 

len came from, it remembered everything. 
But the pollen tree couldn’t grow either, 
not until it flew to the sticky stigma and 
found its way down to the little ovule. 
When this happened and the pollen grain 
and the ovule became one — why, then a 
little plant began to grow, and it grew and 
grew until it became a seed. Then it rested 
awhile until it was ripe. Then it fell on 
the ground and went on growing and grow- 
ing and growing until it became an apple 
tree.” 

“Phew! what a long speech!” ex- 
claimed Robert, with a roguish laugh. 

“There is more to it, you old tease,” 
went on Christobel. “The new apple tree 
that grew from the seed was just like the 
tree the ovule and the pollen came from. 
They both grew in the blossoms of a pippin 
apple, and so the new tree was a pippin.” 

“ Pippin flowers take pippin pollen best,” 
said Bennie, laying his arm across Robert’s 
shoulder. 

“ But you could keep the pippin pollen 
away by covering the flower,” said Christo- 


120 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

bel, “and yourself putting on pollen from 
a red apple. Then the spirit in the ovule 
of the pippin apple might share with the 
spirit in the pollen of the red apple, and we 
might get a fine new apple.” 

“Yes, but the fairy didn’t need to tell 
you that,” said Robert, making a funny 
face at Christobel. “Father has said it, 
besides it is all printed out in your botany 
book.” 

“ But the fairy showed me,” insisted 
Christobel. “ I saw with my eyes just how 
it was done. When stranger pollen came 
to the little ovule in the flower, then the 
apple began to grow, and sometimes the 
stranger pollen gave up its rights and the 
apple was just like the other apples on the 
tree. But sometimes the stranger pollen 
got the little ovule to give up all its rights 
and grow into an apple tree just like the 
tree the pollen came from. And sometimes 
both shared together and the apple was 
partly like the other apples on the tree, and 
partly like the apples on the tree the pollen 
came from. The fairy showed me a 


The Idea of the Tree 121 

streaked apple that she said had come from 
the union of pollen from a red apple with 
the ovule of a yellow one.” 

“It is what we call inheritance,” said 
father. “ Apples inherit their shape and 
color and size and flavor from the ovules 
in the blossoms of the tree they grow on. 
But they also inherit through the pollen, so 
if you fertilize the ovule of one kind of 
tree with the pollen of another you may 
get a new apple, or you may not — all 
depends upon which inheritance is 
stronger.” 

“The ovule is the mother part of the 
plant,” said Christobel. 

“Inheritance can be good or bad,” said 
Bennie, “and we ought always to pick out 



122 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

everything. To have good offspring we 
'must have good parents.” 

“ It is true of animals, too,” said Robert. 
“Yes, and even of people,” added father. 
“A good inheritance of health and intelli- 
gence is the richest gift that parents can 
bestow upon their children. It is far better 
than lands and money.” 

“A little of those thrown in, for me!” 
said Robert, mischievously. 

“You shall have all the land you will 
take care of,” said father, heartily. 



care for them,” said' father; “and right 
away you might go and pull off the sprouts 
that have started out below the graft on 
that young tree I showed you this morning, 
and that long sucker that has shot up from 
the roots.” 

“ What harm do they do ? ” asked Chris- 
tobel. “I should think they would grow 
and make the tree bigger.” 


123 


124 Th e Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ Not the sucker,” said Bennie. “ If you 
let suckers grow you get a lot of bushy 
twigs that do not bear apples, but do take 
the sap-food from the rest of the tree.” 

“And the sprouts,” added father, “that 
grow out below the graft will grow into 
big limbs and bear apples, but the apples 
will be nothing but wild apples like those 
the tree bore before it was grafted. The 
good apples grow only on the grafted 
limbs.” 

“The fairy hasn’t explained grafts,” said 
Christobel. “1 do not understand very 
much about them.” 

“ Why,” said Robert, “ let me be the fairy 
and I will make it all as plain as day, now 
see if I don’t. You take a good healthy 
young tree that bears poor fruit and cut off 
all its limbs rather close to the main trunk. 
And into the cut ends, just under the bark, 
you plant a live twig with leaf buds on it 
from some apple tree that bears splendid 
apples. You cover the cut place with wax 
to keep the sap from running out. The 
transplanted twig grows just as if it were 


Christobel’s Decision 125 

on its own tree, and it bears the same kind 
of apples as the tree it came from.” 

“Very well told,” said father. 

“That seems strange to me,” said Ben- 
nie. “I should think it would bear wild 
apples like the tree it was grafted to. It 
gets sap out of the roots of that tree.” 

“Very true,” said father, “but sap, you 
know, is only food. When a rabbit eats 
turnips, it changes them in its body into 
rabbit tissues. But when a boy eats tur- 
nips, they become boy. It all depends, you 
see, upon who does the work of transform- 
ing the food. Your graft knows how to 
make a certain kind of apple, and that it 
makes, no matter who supplies the food.” 

“ It is a good thing it always remembers,” 
said Robert. 

“ I should think so,” agreed father. “We 
should have poor orchards indeed if we 
could not graft the trees, for it is only once 
in a while that we get good fruit from a 
seedling tree; but if we succeed in getting 
just one good tree — why, then, we can 
have thousands just like it in a few years 


126 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

by grafting its buds into trees that bear 
common apples.” 

“ Do the grafts always bear just the same 
apples as they did before they were put into 
the new tree ? ” asked Robert. “ It seems 
to me I have heard something different 
about that.” 

“ Perhaps not always,” answered father, 
“but often enough to make grafting, or 
budding, the best and surest way to get the 
apple you want.” 

“ Budding is about the same as grafting, 
isn’t it?” asked Bennie. 

“Yes, only you plant one leaf bud into 
the tree limb instead of a whole twig.” 

“Why not plant good apple seeds to start 
with?” asked Bennie. “I should think 
that would be easier than grafting after the 
trees are partly grown.” 

“The trouble is,” said father, “it is very 
hard to get apple trees to bear apples like 
those from which the seeds are taken; if 
you plant pippin seeds, for instance, the 
trees that come from them may bear sour 
wild apples.” 


ChristobeT s Decision 


12 7 


“Oh, ho!” said Robert, pulling Christo- 
bel’s pigtail; “what has become of inher- 
itance now? ” 

“Well,” said father, “it is just because 
of inheritance that this is so. Inheritance 
is very deep seated, and it takes a good 
many generations sometimes to change a 
habit and to ‘fix/ as we say, a new habit. 
Your seed inherits, that is true; but it is 
more apt to transmit an old inheritance 
than a new one. You might get one tree 
that inherited the idea of a good apple out 
of a great many seeds that you planted. 
Then, if you took seeds from the apples of 
that good tree and planted them, you 
might get a number of good trees, as well 
as many poor ones. And so, if you kept 
on for a good many generations planting 
the seeds from those trees that inherited 
the idea of good fruit, in course of time 
all the seeds, or nearly all, would have 
the good-apple habit fixed, so they 
would grow into the kind of tree you 
wanted.” 

“ But why don’t we? ” asked Robert. 


128 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“I guess it would take too long,” said 
Bennie. 

“Just the point,” assented father. “If 
you planted your apple seeds today from 
the best pippin tree, it would be several 
years before the young trees bore fruit, and 
then suppose none of them bore the kind 
of fruit you wanted, or suppose one or two 
did, then all the rest of the trees would have 
to be dug up, and all the time and care you 
had lavished on them would be wasted. 
And so it would go, and you would be old 
before you got a tree whose seeds always 
grew into good apple trees, if you suc- 
ceeded in getting one at all. No, it is easier, 
and better, to take a good, strong young 
tree and graft it — then you can have a 
whole orchard of good trees in a few years.” 

“That is the way I am going to start,” 
said Robert. 

“ But with quick-growing plants it is dif- 
ferent,” said Bennie. 

“Yes, indeed,” replied father; “you can 
afford to plant an acre of peas every year 
until you get the kind of pea you want 



fixed so that 
always come 
true; but it is a 
different 
story to put out a 
apple orchard 
few years with 
hope of getting 
good trees.” 

“ But isn’t there a quicker 
way?” suddenly asked Robert. 

“It seems to me I have read something 
about planting a whole young tree, instead 
of a graft, in another tree.”' 

“You should have read it more care- 
fully,” said father. “But it is true that 
experiments are being made that shorten 
up the time a great deal. You can plant a 
seedling tree in another tree and get fruit 
from it in a year or two; but even that is 
slow compared to planting a gardenful of 
peas. But you can try it.” 

“ I am going to,” said Robert, decidedly, 
“just for the fun of it.” 




130 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“So am I,” added Bennie. “And when 
I get a fine new apple, then I shall take 
buds from it and put them in all the trees 
1 have that bear poor fruit.” 

“What will you call your fine new 
apple?” asked Christobel. 

“ He will call it the Robertus,” said Rob- 
ert, loftily. 

“Not a bit of it,” protested Christobel; 
“ he will call it after somebody else, won’t 
you, Bennie? ” 

“Perhaps,” said Bennie, laughing, “I 
will call it the Christorobertus.” 


AA V 111 ^ 



WHERE OUR APPLES 
CAME FROM 


ID our apples come from 
Europe, in the first 
place? ” asked Robert. 

‘Yes,” said father, “it is prob- 
able that the apples we have today 
were developed from the wild crab 
of Europe. That happened long 
before the discovery of America. 
The early settlers brought young 
apple trees and grafts and started 
orchards in the New World. In- 
deed, t apples are said to 
have 
been 
intro- 



132 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

duced into America from England in 1629, 
by the Governor of Massachusetts Bay. 
But since then a good many new apples 
have been developed in America from that 
first old English stock. Some of the best 
apples in the world are now grown here. 
The apple tree liked the northern part of 
America quite as much as the people liked 
it, and in time there arose fine new apples. 
One of these, the Newtown Pippin, is one of 
the very finest apples in the whole world. " 

“The Baldwin is an American apple, 
isn't it, father?" asked Bennie. 

“Yes, and so is the Spitzenberg, and a 
number of other fine apples." 

“ But we have wild apples, haven’t we? " 
asked Christobel; “those over on the edge 
of the pasture that make such good cider." 

Father shook his head. “No, little 
daughter, those are not natives. They have 
come from the seeds of cultivated apples 
that were dropped there, and that sprouted 
and grew into trees without cultivating or 
grafting. But there are wild crab apples in 
America which it might be possible to de- 


Where Our Apples Came From 133 

velop into fine apples, only nobody has 
taken the time and trouble to do it.” 

“ I saw wild crabs when I went West 
with Uncle John last year,” said Robert. 
“The trees were covered with deep pink 
blossoms, oh, so fragant ! Why, they were 
as sweet-scented as English violets.” 

“Yes,” said Christobel, “you sent a box- 
ful home to mother, and they dried up and 
smelled sweet all winter.” 

“Some people believe that the blood of 
the wild crab is in some of our good, spicy 
American apples,” said father. “It may 
have happened that the pollen of the crab 
fertilized the ovule of some orchard tree. 
Then from the seed of that apple may have 
grown a tree that bore a new, spicy apple.” 

“There are a great many kinds of ap- 
ples,” said Bennie. 

“Yes,” agreed father, “and they are 
changing all the time. Every few years you 
hear of some fine, new apple. And grad- 
ually the old apples seem to disappear, and 
give way to the new. I have noticed that 
in my lifetime.” 


134 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ I am glad apples have got into stories,” 
said Christobel. 

“Yes,” added father, “there are a good 
many apple stories in different parts of the 
world. The apple has always been a favor- 
ite. It was a symbol of fertility in ancient 
Britain, and the apple tree was reverenced 
by the old Druids because the sacred mistle- 
toe so often grew on its boughs. I have 
read that even to this day the people in 
some parts of England salute the apple trees 
to encourage them to bear a full crop.” 

“ How do they do it? ” asked Bennie. 

“It is an ancient custom,” answered 
father. “The farmers use fitting incanta- 
tions, and pour the contents of a wassail 
bowl about the roots, then farmers and men 
dance around the tree in a circle, singing a 
toast to the tree like the following: 

Here’s to thee, old apple tree. 

Whence thou mayst bud and whence thou 
mayst blow; 

And whence thou mayst bear apples enow. 

Hats full! caps full! 

Bushels and sacksful! 

Huzza! 


Where Our Apples Came From 135 

“How jolly!” cried Robert. 

“ What is a wassail bowl ? ” asked Chris- 
tobel. 

“It is the bowl out of which people in 
olden times drank toasts to each other,” 
answered Robert. 

“ I thought people ate toast, not drank 
it,” said Christobel; at which Robert began 
to laugh, but father stopped him, saying, 
“Not so fast, my son, perhaps you really 
know as little about these toasts as Chris- 
tobel. Do you know why they are called 
toasts? ” 

“No, I don’t,” laughed Robert, pulling 
Christobel’s apron string and looking a 
little ashamed. 

“Shall I laugh at you?” asked father. 

“No, father,” said Robert, roguishly, 
“don’t laugh, but take pity on a poor igno- 
ramus, and enlighten his ignorance.” 

At this father and all the rest of them 
had a good laugh, and then father began to 
tell about the wassail bowl. “We know 
something about it from the name,” he 
said. ‘Wassail’ is a very old word mean- 


136 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

ing ‘be whole,’ ‘be well.’ People used to 
use it as a salutation, as we today say ‘ fare- 
well.’ The ancient Britons used this salu- 
tation when they offered the drinking cup 
to a guest. Just as the people of today 
sometimes say ‘ Here’s to your health,’ when 
drinking together. From this, -wassailing 
came finally to mean drinking a health. 
And the drink in those ancient times was 
not wine, because grapes did not grow 
abundantly in Britain.” 

“Perhaps they drank cider,” said Chris- 
tobel. 

“Yes, they drank cider sometimes, and 
sometimes ale sweetened and spiced and 
flavored with' fruits. And on Christmas 
eve they drank to the health of the apple 
trees.” 

“Oh, how pretty!” cried Christobel. 

“ But the toast,” reminded Robert. 

“ I am coming to that,” said father. “ It 
was the custom in those old times to put a 
piece of toasted bread in the bottom of the 
wassail bowl, no doubt to give flavor to 
the drink, and somehow the name of the 


Where Our Apples Came From 137 

toast replaced that of the wassail in drink- 
ing a health; so, instead of drinking a was- 
sail to a friend, they drank a toast, as we 
do today.” 

“How odd,” said Robert. “I wonder 
how it came about.” 

“Nobody knows,” said father, “though 
there are various explanations. But. we do 
know that it was customary to pass the 
wassail bowl about at Yuletide, which you 
know is Christmas time, and on Christmas, 
as 1 said, they wassailed the apple trees.” 

“What jolly things apples are!” sud- 
denly exclaimed Bennie. “When we find 
out about them we learn history and 
mythology and about different countries 
and languages, and get so many pretty 
stories.” 

“Yes,” said father, “that is true, and it 
is true of everything else as well. You 
cannot really learn about any ,one thing 
without learning about a great many other 
things. Nothing stands alone.” 

“That is exactly what the Apple-Tree 
Sprite told me!” exclaimed Christobel. 


138 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ Everything is woven together with every- 
thing else. She said that if you really knew 
all there was to know about one thing you 
would have to know about everything else 
in the whole world. It is all a shining 
network.” 



FUN AND FACT 

<<r T^HE apple tree breathes/’ announced 

1 Christobel one evening. 

“ That’s no news,” said Robert. “ Every 
living thing breathes, every plant and every 
animal.” 

“ The plant breathes all over its surface,” 
added Bennie. 

“Do you know how? ” asked father. 

“I do,” said Christobel. “It takes the 
oxygen out of the air wherever the air 
touches it.” 

“Then what? ” asked father. 

“The plant uses the oxygen and sends 
the carbon dioxide back into the air again, 
just as our lungs do,” said Robert. 

“It is the oxygen in the air that keeps 
us alive,” said Christobel. 


139 


140 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Yes, and too much carbon dioxide 
would smother us to death/’ added Bennie. 

“1 should think,” went on father, 
“that with all the plants and animals 
breathing carbon dioxide into the air, and 
using up the oxygen, we would soon 
smother.” 

“Oh father!” exclaimed Christobel, 
don’t you remember, the plants breathe 
the carbon dioxide out into the air and 
then they eat it up. They breathe air 
and they eat air. When they breathe 
they keep the oxygen and send out carbon 
dioxide. But when they eat, it is just the 
opposite.” 

“Yes,” put in Robert, “a regular see-saw; 
breathing in oxygen, sending out carbon 
dioxide; eating up carbon dioxide, sending 
out oxygen.” 

“Fortunately for us, they eat up much 
more carbon dioxide than they breathe 
out,” said father, “and so they keep the 
air pure for us to breathe.” 

“What should we do without the 
plants!” exclaimed Bennie suddenly; 


Fun and Fact 


141 

“they give us air to breathe and food to 
eat.” 

“Yes, indeed,” said father; “if it were 
not for the plants where would we be? 
We could not live at all. They are able to 
take food from air and earth and water, 
and build it up into food for animals.” 

“ Animals cannot eat mineral food,” said 
Bennie; “they have to eat plants.” 

“ Sometimes they eat meat,” said Robert. 

“Yes, but what does the animal eat that 
the meat comes from? ” demanded Bennie, 
triumphantly. 

Father laughed. “ In the end, the food 
of the animal must come from the plant.” 

“ My apple tree is all the time giving me 
oxygen to breathe and making apples for 
me to eat,” and Christobel clapped her 
hands in delight. 

“Yes,” said Robert, catching her up and 
whirling about with her, “so it is. And 
you are feeding your precious apple tree 
every time you draw breath!” 

“ Not much ! ” shouted Bennie ; “ it’s when 
she lets out breath that she feeds the tree.” 


142 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“You are too literal,” said Robert, with 
a toss of the head; “ 1 was talking poetry.” 

“Now talk sense, you old tease,” said 
Christobel, pulling free from him, “and 
tell why you said the other day that our 
house and furniture and nearly everything 
else was just our breath frozen into wood.” 

Father laughed. “ There, Rob, what are 
you going to do about that? ” 

Robert looked at 'Christobel and opened 
his eyes very wide at her; then he said with 
a laugh, “ 1 was teasing her, yet in a sense 
it is true. The trees make the greater part 
of their wood out of carbon which they get 
from the air. And the air gets it from our 
breathing, at least it gets a good deal that 
way.” 

“He said,” went on Christobel, with a 
defiant look at Robert, “that I ought to 
breathe deep so as to put wood enough into 
the air to build our new barn.” 

They all laughed, and father said, “ That 
was good advice about breathing deep, but 
1 fear we should never have the barn if we 
had to wait for the wood to grow.” 



XXX 

AUTUMN LEAVES 


“T must ask the fairy why she doesiTt 
1 color the apple tree leaves bright colors 
in the fall, the way the maples and oaks 
are colored/’ thought Christobel to herself; 
and so it happened, one autumn day when 
the sun was as hot as summer, that Chris- 
tobel climbed to her favorite seat in the 
apple tree, and sure enough, along came 
the fairy looking young and gay and happy. 


143 


144 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ You must have had plenty of hard work 
this summer,” said Christobel, very much 
pleased at her appearance. 

“ Indeed I have,” agreed the fairy, “ even 
though you did not have much of an apple 
crop. Still I finished up enough for family 
use, and I have been Oh, so busy, starting 
flower buds for next year — just wait till 
you see. My! such a crop as you will have; 
that is, if all the helpers do their part. Any- 
way, I have done mine, and now all de- 
pends on the bees and the wind and the 
rain and the frost and the bad insects and 
your own watchfulness.” 

“ What has the frost to do with it, I won- 
der?” asked Christobel. “Snow and ice 
and zero weather do not hurt the apple 
trees. Cold is good for them.” 

“So it is,” said the fairy; “which is why 
apples do not grow in hot countries. You 
never saw an apple tree and an orange tree 
side by side, did you? ” 

“ I never did,” admitted Christobel. “ But 
then I never saw an orange tree anyway, 
excepting a little one in a box,” 


Autumn Leaves 


H5 


“Well, you probably never will see ap- 
ples and oranges growing together, because 
apple trees need the cold, and orange trees 
can’t stand it. But there are times for all 
things, and while cold is good for the tree 
after it has shed its leaves and .gone to 
sleep for the winter, it .is bad for it after 
the tender leaves and blossoms have started 
in the spring — so bad, indeed, that a late 
frost sometimes kills the whole crop.” 

“ 1 hope that won’t happen to our trees,” 
said Christobel; “and speaking of leaves, 
you have never told me why you do not dress 
the apple trees up in the autumn the way 
the oaks and maples and dogwoods and 
beech trees are dressed — all in such pretty 
bright colors.” 

“Well, now,” said the fairy, “ I am sorry 
you noticed that. The truth is, I can only 
do what I can do.” 

“ I suppose you haven’t time for every- 
thing,” said Christobel, sorry she had raised 
the question. 

“Oh, it isn’t that,” said the fairy, with 
a shrug; “ it goes deeper than that. It goes 


146 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

down to the very root of things. You see, 
I can paint the apples, but I cannot paint 
the leaves. I can loosen them so they can 
fall from the trees, and sometimes I can get 
rather a pretty yellow effect, but generally, 
in spite of me, the leaves turn brown and 
rusty looking. If 1 could make an apple 
tree blaze like that sumac bush, how proud 
I should be — but then,” she added mer- 
rily, “ if I could do that I might grow proud 
and spend too much time and talent paint- 
ing leaves to the neglect of the fruit, which 
you will admit I do succeed in making quite 
beautiful.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Christobel, heartily; 
“beautiful it is, as beautiful as leaves, yes, 
a thousand times more beautiful, I think, 
and oh, so good to eat ; 1 thank you so much, 
Dear Fairy, for doing the apples, and never 
mind about the leaves. I like them best, 
anyway, just as they are. If they were dif- 
ferent, they wouldn’t be the dear old apple 
leaves.” 

“ I am glad you feel so,” said the fairy, 
looking relieved. 


XXXI 


PLANNING AN APPLE THANKSGIVING 
PARTY 

1 THINK it would be a great thing to 
have an apple Thanksgiving,” said 
Christobel, one evening early in October. 
“The apples give us so much — stories and 
history and poems and good talks by the 
fire and fairy talks in the tree, to say noth- 
ing of apples to eat, and all sorts of good 
things that cook can make.” 

“I think that is a capital idea,” said 
father, and mother agreed. “ Let us work 
it out,” she said, and so they all got together 
and worked it out. It was finally decided 
to give an apple party. 

“ If you give the party, you must do the 
work yourselves,” said mother, “else it 
would not be your party.” 

“I,” said father, “will supply the ban- 
quet hall. You may have the floor of the 
big barn.” 


147 


148 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Oh, how jol- 
ly! ” cried all 
the children 
together. 

“And yo 
must doitrij 
away/’ said 
mother, 

“before 

it gets too cold.” 

“Yes, right 
away!” echoed 
dren; “the 

“I,” said Bennie, “will fix up a long 
table in the barn. I will make it out of new 
boards with criss-cross legs — all very 
strong and clean.” 

So he made the table, while Robert gath- 
ered a great many spicy little wild apples, 
which are the best of all for cider, you 
know, and took them to the cider mill and 
got the hired man to help him work the 
mill, with the assistance of old gray Dob- 
bin, and press out the juice into sparkling 
cider. For everything that went on the 



An Apple Thanksgiving Party 149 

Thanksgiving apple table they were to 
make themselves, you remember. Mother 
said that a part of the Thanksgiving was 
that they were able to do these things. 

But while the boys were busy outside, 
Christobel and her cousins, Jessie and Rose, 
June Rose Christobel’s father always called 
her because she was born in June, were 
not idle in the house. Indeed, they 
were just about as busy as bees, and the 
kitchen smelled like the quintessence of 
all the apples in the world. How they 
did work, paring apples and cooking 
them! 

They had three pots bubbling on the 
stove at once. One had juice in it boiling 
down to make jelly — spicy, tart jelly, for 
they had selected the very best flavored 
apples of all for their jelly. And one had 
apple butter in it, and the other some deli- 
cate white apples that were slowly soften- 
ing into the most delicious apple sauce. 
How the three watched those pots! 

Jessie took the apple sauce off . at just 
the right moment. Christobel put cider 


150 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

and spices in the apple butter that had to 
cook and cook until it was quite thick and 
dark-colored. Rose put the sugar in the 
jelly and skimmed the scum carefully from 
the top, and kept dropping a little out of a 
spoon into a tumblerful of cold water to see 
when it was hard enough. “Now!” she 
cried, and took the boiling kettle off the 
stove and poured the contents into the row 
of bright, clean tumblers that stood all 
ready on the table. 

I declare, there stood a whole dozen of 
tumblers of apple jelly, the finest you ever 
saw, as clear and sparkling as though it had 
been made of melted amber beads, and 
tasting, father said, just like ambrosia, as 
far as he knew anything about ambrosia. 
Rose was so proud that she flushed quite 
red, and looked like a red, red rose — or 
was it because of the heat of the stove? 
But anyway, she was as red as a ripe apple 
as they all praised her jelly. 

“My apple butter won't be handsome, 
but I hope it will at least taste handsome,” 
said Christobel, stirring away to keep it 


An Apple Thanksgiving Party 151 

from burning, and her cheeks were as red 
as apples, too; but it was probably the heat 
of the stove, although she, too, felt proud 
of the good smell that came from her apple 
butter, which father said made him feel 
just like a little boy again, when he used to 
have bread and apple butter for supper all 
winter long. 

“Didn’t you get tired of it?” asked 
Christobel. 

“Never!” he replied, emphatically. “I 
am sure apple butter is also a variety of 
ambrosia.” 

“How about apple sauce?” demanded 
little Cousin Jessie, dancing about and 
flourishing her big stirring spoon. 

“ Apple sauce like that,” said father, crit- 
ically, “is the third variety of ambrosia — 
there were three kinds, you know,” and 
amid the laughter of all the rosy-cheeked 
apple cooks he fled from the kitchen to 
attend to his own affairs. 

“Who is to make the apple pie? ” asked 
Christobel, with a little trouble in her voice, 
for an apple festival without apple pie was 


152 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

a thing of course that could not be thought 
of, and none of the children were yet equal 
to pastry. 

“Well,” said mother, “I should like to 
have a little share in all this, and I will 
make the pie crust.” 

“Hurrah!” cried the girls, and danced 
about and flourished their spoons until you 
would have thought the Indians had got 
loose in the kitchen. 

“I know how to make a Dutch apple 
cake,” said Cousin Jessie. 

“And I can make apple duff,” said June 
Rose. 

“I can make layer cake,” said Christo- 
bel, “if Rose will give me some of her jelly 
to put in.” 

“Oh, won’t I, just!” squealed Rose, de- 
lighted at the thought of jelly cake, “ and 
I will beat the eggs for you.” 

“And I will make icing for it,” screamed 
Christobel, “and we will decorate it, and 
have a dear little gay lady-apple on top.” 

“Oh, yes, we will,” they all cried; “and 
we will get some green smilax from Cousin 


An Apple Thanksgiving Party 153 

Lucy’s hothouse, just enough to make it 
look lovely.” “Save your best apple 
seeds,” said Christobel. “I have an idea 
that we could decorate the cake with apple 
seed patterns and have red and yellow and 
green caraway candies to make it bright.” 

“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried all the red- 
cheeked apple cooks again. 

. “Where are your dried-apple pies?” 
squeaked a teasing voice from behind the 
kitchen door; “how can you have an apple 
festival without any dried apples ? ” 

“Oh, it’s that old tormenting Robert!” 
cried Christobel, running and pulling him 
out. “ You know you boys are not to come 
into the kitchen once — not once; mother 
said so!” 

“ But just think,” squeaked Robert in the 
drollest fashion, “if it hadn’t been for that 
fairy behind the door, you wouldn’t have 
had any dried apples in your show.” 

“That’s so,” admitted June Rose, as 
soon as the gale of laughter that had greeted 
Robert’s emergence from behind the door 
had subsided. “ What can we do ? ” 


154 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Robert squeaked on 
in such a comical manner that the girls 
went off in another gale of laughter; 
“ don’t worry, babies; when there are fairies 
about everything happens just right. And 
this beautiful little fairy” — here he put 
his hand on his heart and made a low bow, 
while the girls nearly died laughing, “this 
beautiful little fairy, who hates dried apples, 
nevertheless peeled and sliced some and put 
them in the drier and fired up — with the 
help of Patrick, another fairy — and they 
are all ready to come before the footlights.” 

“You dear old Robert!” and Christobel 
threw her arms about him and gave him 
such a hug, at which he pulled loose and 
ran out of the door, followed by the cheers 
and laughter of all the red-cheeked cooks, 
who went right to work and stewed and 
cooked and fixed up everything they could 
think of out of the nice dried apples they 
found in the apple drier. 

“It would have been just dreadful to 
have forgotten all about dried apples,” they 
said. 


\ 



XXXII 

THE INVITATIONS 

T HE festival was fixed for day after to- 
morrow, and when night came and the 
jelly was set away and the apple sauce put 
in a cool place in the pantry and the apple 
butter put in a crock and set away, the chil- 
dren gathered together to talk it over — for 
Jessie and Rose were to stay all night and, 
indeed, all the time until after the festival. 

“Now,” said Christobel, “we must send 
out the invitations.” 


155 


156 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“We can't shed fragrance abroad, the 
way the flowers do," added Robert, “so we 
shall have to use written notes instead." 

So they all got some paper and their best 
pens and set to work. The boys. invited all 
the boys they knew, and the girls invited 
all the girls. 

“1 think," said' mother, “it would be 
nice to invite the fathers and mothers, too. 
I am sure they would enjoy it as much as 
the children." 

“ I am sure I don’t want to be left out," 
said father, “and I can’t come without an 
invitation, and if I am invited, all the other 
fathers must be." 

“Of course!" shouted the children. 
“Hurrah! Hurrah!" — and they wrote 
some more notes and invited all the fathers 
and mothers and politely asked them to 
bring the babies because they knew that 
some of them couldn’t come without. What 
a pile of notes there was! 

“ Now, who is to be postman ? ’’ 

“I!" cried Robert. “I am the post- 
man!" 


The Invitations 


157 


“Me, too!” shouted Bennie; “one isn’t 
enough. You fly east and I’ll fly west. 
Remember that the Slocums live a mile and 
a half up the road, and the Grahams two 
miles down the road! ” So the notes were 
all sorted out, some to go up the road with 
Robert, and some to go down the road with 
Bennie. 

When bedtime came the children all 
knew they should not sleep a wink; it was 
as exciting as Christmas. But they had no 
sooner laid their heads on the pillows than 
the sand man slipped in and closed up their 
eyes, and they knew nothing more until 
the sun began to look in and laugh at them 
for being such a set of lazy bones. You 
see, they were tired after the long day’s 
work, and mother had not wakened them 
at the usual time. 

Of course they had to go to school, but 
as soon as it was out, for it was Friday and 
a half holiday, they all rushed off, the boys 
to distribute what few notes were left, for 
they had delivered most of them at recess, 
as nearly all of the children invited were 


158 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

at school that morning. And the three 
girls rushed home to Christobel’s to make 
the cakes, for they had finally decided to 
have two, and the Dutch apple cake. 

But the pies and the apple duff had to be 
made Saturday morning, for mother said 
such things must be eaten quite fresh. 


XXXIII 


ALL IS READY 

W HEN Saturday morning came, every- 
body was up with the sun. The table 
in the barn was all ready. Christobel put 
a white cloth on it, and the boys brought 
baskets full of apples that they had gath- 
ered themselves, and you may be sure they 
took none but the best and prettiest! They 


159 


160 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

piled up a great pyramid of bright red 
apples in the middle of the table, and on 
either side of it a smaller pyramid of bright 
yellow ones, and then all down the table, 
little pyramids of green apples and striped 
ones and red-and-yellow ones. My! how 
good it did smell in the barn there with the 
apples on the table and the sweet hay in 
the loft. 

“The fragrant airs of the Spice Islands 
and the Camphor Islands put together can’t 
compare with it,” father said. And how 
pretty it did look! But it was not finished 
yet, as you know. 

Now comes a procession from the house. 
June Rose, carrying her jelly in a basket, 
came first. She arranged ten glass saucers 
on the table; you see two of her tumblers 
of jelly had gone for jelly cake. Carefully, 
oh so carefully, she turned out a glass of 
jelly into each saucer. Not one broke, but 
they all trembled a little as though they 
were too delighted to keep still, and they 
sparkled like real jewels and the glass 
saucers sparkled, too, in sympathy, no 


All Is Ready 1 6 1 

doubt, as they reflected the bright color of 
the jelly. It made the table look prettier 
than ever, and everyone cried out in de- 
light. Then came Jessie with a tray hold- 
ing two big dishes — of what? It looked 
like white seafoam, but it was her delicious 
apple sauce with a luscious tower of 
meringue on top, made of the whites of 
eggs beaten up with fine white sugar. 

“Um!” said the boys, who were deco- 
rating the sides of the barn with green pine 
boughs just like Christmas. “For it will 
be a sort of apple Christmas,” they said. 

Christobel came next with her rich red- 
dish-brown apple butter in a big glass dish 
that showed its pretty color. “It would 
taste better if it could stand awhile,” said 
she, “but I suppose it ought to be here.” 

“I should think so!” exclaimed father, 
who had just walked in. “What would an 
apple party be without apple butter? But 
where is your apple bread?” 

“Oh, father!” cried Christobel, and be- 
gan to pound him. “Oh, uncle!” cried 
Jessie and Rose, and began to pound him, 


162 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

too, until he had to get out of the barn as 
fast as he could. Then the procession 
rushed back to the house and came again, 
this time bearing apple pies — all rich and 
sweet with the juice boiled out just enough 
along the edge of the crust. Goodness! 
They had to go twice, there were so many 
pies to bring, for good Aunt Delia, the black 
cook, had turned in and helped. And when 
the boys saw how they looked with the 
thick, sweet juice boiled out just enough 
along the crust, they said “Um!” 

And then the procession ran to the house 
again and came back bearing apple tarts 
and apple duff and three kinds of apple pud- 
ding, one with hard sauce with cinnamon 
in, one with rich soft sauce, and one with 
a delicious sauce made of apple. When the 
boys saw these things and smelled how 
good they were, they smacked their lips and 
said “ Um! ” 

Again the procession disappeared and 
appeared again. “This,” said Jessie, “is 
Dutch apple cake, but as it is only biscuit 
dough with sliced apples stuck in on top 


All Is Ready 163 

with sugar and raisins and spices sprinkled 
over, it will do very well for bread, so we 
have apple bread as well as apple butter, 
after all.” 

Behind Jessie and her apple bread came 
Christobel and June Rose, each bearing a 
sort of palace as big around as a peck meas- 
ure, and as white as snow, and all deco- 
rated with the most fascinating designs in 
black apple seeds and red, yellow, and green 
caraway candies, and each had a little cupola 
on top made of lady apples stuck together 
with sugar. The two marble palaces, of 
course, were the jelly cakes, which Aunt 
Delia had helped them make, which is why 
they were so big. When the boys saw 
these, there was nothing for them to do but 
say “ Um! Um! Um!” 

Last of all came little Sue, carrying a 
basket of lady apples very carefully. But 
just before she got to the barn door she 
stubbed her toe and down she went ker- 
plump! and the lady apples rolled and ran 
and danced and fled in all directions like a 
company of mice that heard the cat coming. 


164 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

Down she went, and away went the lady 
apples, and from all the children there broke 
forth such a merry burst of laughter that it 
made one think of a flock of blackbirds all 
gurgling at once. Then everybody ran after 
the runaway apples and captured them and 
put them back in the basket and helped lit- 
tle Sue to stand it safely on the table. 

Father had bought the lady apples at the 
store, for the pretty things did not grow in 
their orchard. 

You can imagine what the table looked 
like when the girls got through decorating 
it. And what the barn looked like when 
the boys got through putting up fragrant 
pine boughs and a few holly branches they 
had found in the swamp. They had taken 
bushes of bright red berries, too, from the 
swamp, and crimson sumac seed clusters, 
and some vines with bluish berries and 
some more with black ones, and draped 
them about most beautifully. It looked 
like a real festival when they got through. 

And then Bennie came with the wheel- 
barrow full of pitchers of sweet new apple 


All Is Ready 165 

cider, which he had stood in a box so as to 
keep them from upsetting. These he stood 
on the table, and as some were glass pitch- 
ers, the golden cider inside them blinked 
and sparkled to the amber jelly as much 
as to say, “Well, how splendidly we rep- 
resent the honorable apple family, you all 
dressed in your best jewel glints, and I in 
my brightest sparkles.” 

“Now we must change our dresses,” 
said the girls; “do you stay, Robbie, and 
look out that a mouse does not jump on 
the table and nibble the cake, or some- 
body's dog get in and eat the pie.” 

Robert shook his head as he said doubt- 
fully, “Just as you say, babies, but 1 am 
not sure that 1 shall be any better than a 
mouse or a doggie if left alone here — and 
me as hungry as a bear with working so 
hard.” 

“Nonsense!” said June Rose, severely; 
“of course you won’t touch a thing. Now 
be sure you don’t,” she added, for as they 
started to go Robert made believe snatch 
at a pudding that stood near him. 


1 66 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“We won’t be long,” sang out Christo- 
bel, unbuttoning her kitchen apron as she 
ran. Before you knew it, they were all com- 
ing back, but you would not have known 
the procession this time! It was like a 
troop of fairies, or a flight of some un- 
known kind of butterfly, for they came flut- 
tering over the green grass with their white 
dresses, and white stockings with little 
brown and red and blue ankle ties, and big 
gay ribbon bows that really did look like 
butterflies, bobbing on top of their heads, 
with their hair all nicely combed. And on 
behind, flapping her wings as she ran, came 
the very smallest white fairy of all, with the 
very biggest blue ribbon bow — baby Sue, 
gurgling with delight, for she had not been 
allowed in the kitchen, and for two days 
had only been able to guess at what was 
going on by the delicious smells that came 
out through the cracks. 

As soon as they arrived, Robert rushed 
off to brush his hair and put on another 
necktie. Bennie had already combed his 
hair, blacked his shoes, and come back. 


XXXIV 


THE PARTY 

T HEN the guests began to arrive. First 
came the Montford children with Aunt 
Chloe to look after them. Each one had a 
round apple cut out of shiny red paper 
sewed on to her pinafore. Then came all 
the Stewarts, father, mother, baby May, 
and the three school boys, and they each 
had an apple twig in their buttonhole. Lit- 
tle Sue ran right up to baby May and took 
her by the hand and led her to the table to 
show her how pretty it all was. Well, after 
this, they came so fast it would be hard to 
keep track of them — little girls with pink 
sashes showing out from under their red 
Jerseys, and some with white dresses, for 
old king Sol up in the sky had done his 
best and poured down such quantities of 
warm golden rays that it seemed quite like 
summer. 

167 


1 68 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

The children came by twos and threes, 
some alone and some with their parents, 
and how they all laughed and exclaimed 
when they saw the beautiful table and 
learned that there was nothing on it but 
what was made, in part at least, of apples! 

There were chairs for the grown people 
and long benches for the children, and after 
they had laughed all they wanted to, and 
admired everything, and chattered to- 
gether, father struck with his cane on the 
side of the barn to attract their attention, 
and when they all stopped and looked, he 
said, “Let us sing, ‘We thank Thee,’” and 
as that was what they sang in school they 
all knew it and sang with a right good will. 

Everybody was then given a thin wooden 
plate, and the bread and butter was passed, 
for after all there was plain bread and but- 
ter brought by Aunt Delia at the last minute 
in a big basket. And then the children 
passed around the apple tart and the apple 
pie, the apple duff and the Dutch apple 
cake — the four kinds of apple pudding; 
and everybody praised the apple sauce and 


The Party 169 

said how good the apple butter was, and 
they all were delighted with the apple jelly 
that shook and sparkled and trembled ex- 
actly as if it understood all the fine things 
said about it, and thought that it really 
deserved them. 

“Did you really make this delicious 
cider ?” the visitors asked Robert. 

If it is true that the proof of the pudding 
is in the eating, that festival was a grand 
success, for when everybody had gone 
there wasn’t anything left but crumbs — 
excepting a great many very pleasant mem- 
ories. 

Before the guests went home, a number 
of the children spoke pieces, by request; 
and Bobby Snider played on his violin, 
which he had brought for the purpose; and 
Pussy Lawrence sang a pretty song, and 
her brother Pete sang one so funny that 
the children nearly fell off their seats laugh- 
ing. When they went they all said what 
a good time they had had, and hoped they 
could come again. And Christobel and her 
cousins and brothers said yes, they hoped 


170 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

that father and mother would let them do 
it again next year. 

Thus ended the party, excepting that 
there was enough of it to make talk for a 
long time. 


XXXV 


THE NIGHT AFTER THE PARTY 



172 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

tobel, “but they are different, and next 
time they shall come, for I am going to 
make some nice crab-apple jelly on pur- 
pose.” 

“ I wonder,” went on Christobel, after a 
pause, “if the Apple Tree Sprite knew 
about our party.” 

“ I am sure so,” said Cousin Jessie. “ It 
was probably the fairy that put it into your 
mind to do it.” 

“ I didn’t think of that,” laughed Chris- 
tobel. 

“I am going to set out an orchard of 
my own,” suddenly announced Bennie. 
“ Father says I may.” 

“There is a great deal to think of,” 
warned Robert; “just where to put it — for 
apple trees grow better in some places than 
others, you know — just what kind of soil 
to give them; just what varieties to choose; 
just how to set out the trees and prune 
them and graft them and keep away 
enemies.” 

“Yes, 1 know all that, but father says 
he will advise me, and there is nothing he 


The Night After the Party 173 

would like better to have me spend my 
time on than a young apple orchard.” 

“Well, I may as well have one, too,” 
decided Robert, after a few minutes. “It 
will come in handy when I am grown up, 
and besides I mean to plant out a lot of nut 
trees, too. I like nuts with my apples.” 

“I hope,” said Christobel, “that our 
orchard fairy will look after your trees, too; 
she certainly does take beautiful care of 
them.” 

“ Or anyway, that just as good a one will 
find us,” laughed Robert. 

“But what can we do with so many 
apples?” suddenly asked Christobel. 

“I know,” said Bennie; “we will send 
them over the sea in ships. We will send 
them sailing away to countries where ap- 
ples do not grow.” 

“Yes, and to the cities,” added Christo- 
bel. “We will send our apples to all the 
cities in the world so that the little children 
may have all the apples they want to eat.” 

“I am going to send my best ones to 
Persia,” declared Bennie, “so the people 


i74 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

can see how we have changed their wild 
apples into something beautiful.' ” 

“I thought that father said our apples 
came from the wild apples of Europe,” 
said Robert. “Persia is in Asia.” 

“ It isn’t known exactly where they came 
from,” answered father. “Some say Eu- 
rope, and some believe that they came from 
Central Asia.” 


XXXVI 


THE PEARS 

T HAT night Christobel waked up with a 
sharp pain in her toe. It did not last 
a minute, but it was enough to rouse her 
in time to see a queer little imp sitting 
on the bed post at the foot of the bed. 
It was grinning like everything and re- 
minded Christobel of the Apple-Tree Sprite, 
although it did not really look like her. 

“Ho! ho!" laughed the little creature; 
“can't I pinch when I want to?" 

“ Was it you pinched my toe ? Why did 
you ? ” 

“I wanted to talk," said the imp. “To 
come to the point at once, I want to scold 
you for leaving the pears and quinces out 
of your party. Don’t you know they are 
the nearest relatives to the apples?" 





tobel’s toe another tweak; but she pulled 
it away in time and they both began to 
laugh. 

“But,” said Christobel, sobering down, 
“it would not be very easy, for the early 
pears are all gone excepting those we 
canned, and the late winter pears are not 
ripe yet.” 

“A poor excuse is better than none, I 
suppose,” went on the imp, with a grimace. 
“Still, there are a few good, ripe pears to 
be had,” 


The Pears 


177 

“Yes,” admitted Christobel, “ there are, 
and we could just as well have had some 
canned pears; they are very good, you 
know.” 

“Yes, I should say so,” said the imp 
earnestly; “they are better than canned 
apples.” 

“Are you the Pear-Tree Fairy?” asked 
Christobel. 

“Yes, I am,” was the cross reply. 

“Oh, may I come and visit you next 
spring? and will you talk to me the way 
the Apple-Tree Sprite talks? ” asked Chris- 
tobel eagerly. At which the Pear-Tree 
Fairy smiled like a sudden burst of sunshine 
and looked very sweet and pleasant. 

“I will get father to fix a board in the 
crotch of the big old pear tree behind the 
house, for you know pear trees are not as 
good as apple trees to sit in. They grow 
straight up and hold their limbs up, too, 
instead of spreading out.” 

“I am aware of all that,” said the fairy; 
“such is the habit of pear trees, and you 
can’t expect the pear tree to change its 


178 The Apple-Tree Sprite 



shape, you know, v anV y more 




sat in the pear tree that looked like a big 
white cloud, so covered was it with flowers. 
And to her came the Pear Tree Fairy with 
many a pleasant tale of the land of the 
pear which lay across the seas. “ For you 
must know,” said the fairy, “that pears 
are no more native here than are the apples. 
The ancestors of your pears grew wild in 
the northern part of Europe a long time 
ago, before people knew how to make use 
of iron or any of the metals, and had to 
kill and cook by the aid of bones and stones. 
And they also grew in Asia. We know 
that there were wild pear trees in Persia 
long, long ago.” 



The Pears 179 

“How do you know?” inquired Chris- 
tobel. 

“Oh, that is a matter of language, prin- 
cipally. But 1 can’t explain it. If you grow 
up and study Persian and Sanskrit, and 
Hebrew and Aramaic, and all the rest of the 
languages, it will be easy enough. But I 
can tell you this, although 
the apples make jp 

so much of 
having been / 
in theSwiss^ 

1 fe\ta 




they ate them up instead of scattering them 
about for posterity to find, hundreds and 
thousands of years afterwards. Homer 
speaks of the pear, you know, and very 
likely Paris fed apples to Helen of Troy. 
And if he didn’t, at least nobody can 
prove it. 

“You know how Pompeii was buried 
under the ashes of Vesuvius,” went on the 
imp after a short pause, “ and how people 
dug the city out more than a thousand years 


The Pears 


afterwards and found the walls of the 
houses all covered with beautiful pic- 
tures. Well, there you will see pear trees 
pictured on the walls, which shows how 
much the Romans in those days cared for 
pears.” 

“They are good,” said Christobel; “a 
Bartlett pear is about perfect, I think, and 
so are the little brown Seckels; oh my, so 
sweet! ” 

“Now you are talking sense,” said the 
fairy, who grew prettier and gayer every 
time Christobel had anything compliment- 
ary to say about pears. “And there are 
other good varieties,” she went on, “some 
early and some late, but pear trees are 
rather particular, and unless they are 
treated properly, they do not succeed well. 
They are very aristocratic, you know; not 
able to rough it like apples, and more easily 
upset by neglect and poor food.” 

“Yes, apple trees just go right on doing 
their best no matter how hard their life 
may be,” exclaimed Christobel, to which 
the fairy replied, “Humph!” and then 



in this country. But there are places where 
they have nice sour cider pears, just as you 
have cider apples, and they make cider out 
of them. France is one country where they 
do this.” 

“ It is wonderful how the pear' tree blos- 
soms,” said Christobel; “and do you make 
all these great white flower-clusters ? ” 

“ 1 have something to do with it,” 
chuckled the Sprite. “Would you like to 
see me work? ” and she began to weave in 


The Pears 


183 

among the petals that grew as she touched 
them. “ I take a great deal of pains with 
my perfumery,” she went on. “ See ! ” and 
she scattered something out of the flowers 
so small that Christobel could not see it at 
all until the fairy had given her a pair of 
her own opera glasses to look through. In 
order that Christobel could use them she 
had first to be made as small as the fairy, 
which of course was easy enough, as every- 
body knows that fairies excel in that sort 
of thing. 

“My! how funny my eyes must look; no 
bigger than pin heads!” exclaimed Chris- 
tobel as she took the tiny glasses and put 
them up to her eyes. She took one look 
and then fairly gasped. “What is it?” 
she asked excitedly, for the whole world 
seemed filled with little shining points float- 
ing about in the air. They made a shining 
mist, they were so close together, and swam 
out like a great soft whirling mist-cloud 
far away from the pear tree on all sides. 

“Those,” said the fairy, delighted with 
the effect produced, “are my scent bottles. 


184 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

Every time you breathe you draw in 
pear blossom fragrance with the air.” 
“It is wonderful,” said Christo- 
bel, “and now I know why we 
can smell Uncle John’s pear or- 
chard so far away when it is in 
bloom. Do the apple fairies make 
perfumery in the same way?” 
‘Oh yes, they do, but they 
_ do not pay as much 

attention to it; you 
cannot 



The Pears 185 

a blossoming apple tree as far as you can 
a blossoming pear tree.” 

“That is true,” said Christobel, and 
changed the subject for fear she might be 
asked how she liked pear tree fragrance. 
And then she would have had to own that 
she very much preferred the fainter but 
delicate and delicious apple blossom fra- 
grance. For the pear scent seemed to her 
rather overpowering and a little coarse in 
comparison. 

“ 1 do like to smell pear blossoms a long 
way off,” she said to herself, remembering 
how delighted they all had been with the 
fragrance of Uncle John’s pear trees that 
came stealing through the woods to meet 
them, all mixed with the fragrance of pine 
needles and opening willow buds. 

“You see I make the little cores and the 
little seeds in them, all as perfect as you 
please,” the fairy replied in answer to a 
question from Christobel. “You have to 
be extra careful about seeds, you know. 
Everything in the future depends on the 
seeds of today. And it is not always easy 


1 86 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

to impress beautiful memories on the seeds 
I can tell you.” 

“Is that what makes beautiful pears?” 
asked Christobel. 

“Yes, indeed,” answered the fairy. “A 
good deal depends on my own feelings, too. 
When I am happy and full of sunshine my- 
self, 1 somehow get it into the seeds. Even 
on a poor tree the way I feel makes a dif- 
ference, and when in the right mood I can 
make the seeds remember pleasanter things 
than when I feel sad or mean.” 

“That is why seeds differ on the same 
plant, I suppose,” said Christobel; “some 
of my sweet-pea seeds were very fine and 
made fine strong vines that were covered 
with lovely flowers.” 

“ I suppose it may be the same with the 
sweet peas, but 1 am too busy over my 
pears to pay much attention to such small 
folks — not that I am proud, but 1 haven’t 
time,” the fairy added quickly, fearing to 
be misunderstood. 


XXXVII 


THE QUINCE-TREE FAIRY 

“\V 7HAT was it you said about quinces 
VV last autumn when you pinched my 
toe?’' asked Christobel one day when she 
saw the Pear-Tree Fairy swinging on a limb 
near her head. For she often went to visit 
the pear tree, although, if the 
were known, she did not 
care as much for the Pear-Tree 
Fairy as for the Apple-Tree 
She thought it was 
so pretty, for it was 
rather 
yellow 



1 88 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

fairy's cheeks, and it did not smell as sweet, 
for you must know that each fairy smelled 
like the flowers it worked with, as Chris- 
tobel in time discovered. 

“ Quinces?" repeated the Pear-Tree 
Fairy, “did I speak of quinces? The truth 
is I know very little about them. I am too 
busy over my own affairs, which, as you 
know, is working over the pear trees." 

“Have our quince trees a fairy?" de- 
manded Christobel. 

“ I suppose so," was the reply. 

“ How can I find her? " asked Christobel. 
“The trees are not big enough to sit in and 
wait quietly until something happens, as I 
do with you and the apple fairy." 

“ If you want her badly enough, I guess 
you won't have any trouble," said the Pear- 
Tree Fairy, and that was all she said. 

But Christobel took the hint and went 
out to the quince trees that were just in 
bud, and looked at them very earnestly and 
wished in her heart of hearts that she might 
see the quince fairy. But no, not one ap- 
peared — at least not then. Not until she 


The Quince-Tree Fairy 189 

fell asleep in her own bed thinking about 
how' pretty and green the quince bushes 
looked with the white buds peeping out 
like so many great pearls, did the Quince- 
Tree Fairy appear upon the scene. Chris- 
tobel woke up, or so she thought, and saw 
her there. My! What a funny little dar- 
ling it was! 

She was all dressed in light green, the 
color of young quince leaves, but about her 
shoulders was the daintiest white cape 
made of a quince petal, and on her dear 
little head was a sweet little snow white 
cap just edged with pink, and her face was 
round and as white as milk, with the pink- 
est cheeks, and a little pink chin, and pink 
ears. Her eyes were like little dancing 
stars, and she looked so sweet and so 
roguish that Christobel was inclined to 
think her the prettiest fairy she had ever 
seen. 

“You see,” said the fairy, as though she 
had read her thoughts, “I haven’t been 
knocking about the world so much as the 
apple and pear fairies, and I do not have 


190 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

nearly so much to do. People do not gen- 
erally give us quince fairies large orchards 
to look after, and they are not experiment- 
ing to such an extent with the quinces, so 
we do not have to keep learning new ways. 
We spend our time thinking of the past. 
Now my past was spent in the land of Per- 
sia; there quinces grow wild to this very 
day. And the Persian princes have always 
loved to have us in their gardens, for the 
princesses love to eat the delicious pre- 
serves and candied things made from the 
fruit, and they always have some on their 
banquet tables. Ah me! how well I remem- 
ber the palace of King Dushyanta — but 
that was after I left Persia and went down 
to Hindustan. It is all the same, however, 
for the mango tree grows there, and the 
young maidens hang sirisha flowers on 
their ears, and the nightingale sings in the 
sacred groves.” 

“That is lovely,” said Christobel; “tell 
some more.” 

And the little white fairy went on and 
told so many wonderful things that Chris- 


The Quince-Tree Fairy 191 

tobel sighed and said, “ I wish I could go to 
Persia and have a white cat with long, soft 
hair and a fluffy tail sit on my shoulder, 
and see the blue lotus, and taste the won- 
derful fruits.” 

“ Perhaps some day you can go,” said 
the fairy, dimpling all over with pleasure 
that Christobel wanted to go to Persia. 

“Why do you not make your quinces 
get all soft and sweet and ripe and juicy 
like peaches?” asked Christobel. “Just 
think how wonderful they would be.” 

The little white fairy shook her head. 
“That is not the way quinces began,” she 
said. “They grew wild, you know, and 
wild fruits are generally hard and sour. 
Well, when man begins to select, and cross- 
fertilize, and develop the fruits in a thou- 
sand ways, he takes care of them. If he 
doesn’t, they have to take care of them- 
selves the best way they can, and they can- 
not possibly produce such fine fruit; well, 
man has never developed the quinces very 
much.” 

“ I wonder why.” 


192 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“ Perhaps the day will come when he 
will,” said the fairy; “but quinces are 
rather slow to yield — slower than apples, 
I think, though 1 am not quite sure. And 
then you have to cook quinces with fire. I 
haven't learned to bake them in the sun 
the way the apple fairies bake their apples.” 

“The quince has such a wonderful fla- 
vor,” said Christobel. 

“Yes, and it is very closely related to the 
apples.” 

“That reminds me,” exclaimed Christo- 
bel; “I had almost forgotten to tell you! 



The Quince-Tree Fairy 193 

“I am glad of that!” and the quince 
fairy dimpled all over. “How are you 
going to have quinces prepared? ” 

“Oh, we shall have quince sauce, and 
baked quinces; they are so good, you 
know; and 1-o-v-e-l-y quince jelly, and 
canned quinces, and quince preserve, and 
quince pudding, and quince honey! Do 
you know how good quince honey is? Oh 
no, the bees do not make it! You just 
grate some quinces and cook them with 
sugar until they are about as thick as clover 
honey. They look like honey, only they 
taste like quince.” 

“That must be good,” said the fairy 
with a gleeful little laugh; “ I will surely be 
there.” 

“Oh goody!” cried Christobel, clapping 
her hands. “ I will have a little chair all 
ready for you.” 

“Never mind that,” laughed the fairy; 
“you won’t be able to see me, but I shall 
be there just the same; that is, if you re- 
member to put something made of quince 
on the table; otherwise I cannot come, for 


194 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

quince on the table is my invitation, you 
know.” 

“Oh, you shall have a whole tableful of 
invitations,” promised Christobel, “and I 
will get Laura Thompson to bring her fuzzy 
white cat — it looks exactly like a real one, 
you know — to make you think of Persia.” 

And then morning came, and they all 
began to plan a new festival to which the 
pear and the quince fairies should be in- 
vited. And this time the crab apples were 
not forgotten, for Christobel remembered, 
and at the right time made some delicious 
crab apple jelly, and kept it for the occa- 
sion. 


XXXVIII 


COUSINS, UNCLES, AND AUNTS 

“\Y/HY don’t y° u ^ ave the apple 
VV cousins and uncles and aunts?” in- 
quired Robert, teasingly, of Christobel one 
evening. “Do you think you ought to 
leave out the hawthornes, the service ber- 
ries, and all the rest? ” 

“ How do you know they belong to the 
apples?” asked Christobel, suspiciously. 


196 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“Oh, I know a lot,” answered Robert, 
to which Bennie added, “ He has been read- 
ing it up in the botany.” 

“Well,” laughed mother, “that is a 
pretty good way to find out. But never 
mind, Christobel, the hawthornes and all 
the rest may be pretty little cousins, but 
they do not bear the noble fruits that 
the apples, pears, and quinces bear, and 
so there is no way to get invitations to 
them.” 

“No,” cried Christobel, “you can’t make 
hawthorne jelly!” 

“No, but you can make preserves of 
hawthorne apples,” put in Robert, looking 
very wise. “People used to value such 
preserves.” 

“But that was probably before there 
were so many good berries and other fruits 
to be had,” added mother. 

“Hawthorne apples are good to eat 
sometimes, the big kind, only there isn’t 
much of anything to them,” said Bennie. 
“Couldn’t they be cultivated and in time 
developed into first-rate fruits, Father? ” 


Cousins, Uncles, and Aunts 197 

“I think they could,” answered father, 
“but nobody has bothered with them so 
far as I know. You might try, Bennie, and 
see if you can make a good fruit out of the 
hawthorne.” 

Bennie shook his head. “Too slow for 
me, Father. I would rather put my time 
and talent into real apples.” 

“That seems to be the opinion of 
everybody,” laughed father, “so the haw- 
thornes remain nature’s fruits; good 
enough for the birds but not of much 
use to man.” 

“The service berries, too,” went on Rob- 
ert. “They are pretty good, when the birds 
give you a chance to taste them, but I 
should think they could be a great deal 
better.” 

“So they are, in Japan,” answered 
father. “I have heard that there are fine 
fruits there, from trees similar to our serv- 
ice or shadblow trees. Very likely they 
will some time be introduced into this coun- 
try; that would be easier than developing 
them from our wild fruit.” 


198 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

“What else did you say belongs to the 
apple family, Rob? ” asked Bennie. 

“ He’s forgotten,” said Christobel teas- 
ingly. “Mr. Know-it-all has forgotten.” 

“Has he!” exclaimed Robert trium- 
phantly; “what about mountain ash?” 

“Mountain ash isn’t an apple, I know,” 
said Christobel .decidedly. 

“I didn’t ^ 
is an apple; I ^ 
it belongs to 
apple family, 
so it does, does' 
it, Father?” 

“Yes, it closely 
bles the apples in the 



Cousins , Uncles , and Aunts 199 

berries you will find it very much like a 
tiny apple.” 

“A bunch of mountain ash berries 
doesn’t look much like apples, anyway,” 
persisted Christobel, “but it is ever so 
pretty.” 

“You would think so if you could see it 
in the cold, rough mountains where it be- 
longs,” said father. 

“Well, Mr. Know-everything, what 
else?” demanded Christobel. 

“Well, Miss Saucebox, there are the 
chokecherries, both red and black. I know 
you don’t know them, so I’ll proceed to tell 
you that they are bushes. They grow in 
swampy places and bear bunches of small, 
white flowers and little, red or blackish ber- 
ries. Then there are the thorn bushes, you 
know; a dozen or more besides the com- 
mon hawthorne.” 

“We might use some of those to deco- 
rate with,” said Bennie. 

“Oh, yes!” cried Christobel. “Let us 
do that; that will be a good way to in- 
vite them. Will you get some for us, 


200 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

you dear old good-for-nothing, know-every- 
thing Robbity Bob?” 

“ If you'll give me a kiss, I’ll try,” said 
Robert. 

“You shall have six kisses,” and little 
Christobel threw her arms about her 
brother’s neck and gave him six kisses on 
the spot. 


XXXIX 


PLANTING THE APPLE TREE 

Y OU may be sure that when the party 
came off, everybody had as good a time 
as they had had the year before. And the 
table looked as pretty, or even prettier, with 
the quince and crab apple and pear dishes 
all sparkling and beautiful. And Robert 
had found some mountain ash berries that 
helped very much in the decorations. 

That all the fairies of the fruit trees were 
there, Christobel discovered after she went 
to bed that night, for they all came together 
to visit her, and they were all dressed in 
their sweetest smiles and merriest sparkles. 
The Crab-Apple Fairy that Christobel then 
saw for the first time was so dainty and airy 
and shed such sweet fragrance in the air 
that Christobel thought her almost the 
prettiest of all, but she was such a wild and 
shy little thing that Christobel could get 


201 


202 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

nothing out of her but entrancing smiles. 
The other fairies talked fast enough, how- 
ever, and said how they had enjoyed the 
festival, and how grateful they were to 
Christobel for asking them. 

But, delightful as all this was, it was 
early next spring that perhaps the most 
important apple festival of all took place. 

Each of the children had selected, with 
father’s help, a good site for an orchard. 
Christobel had decided that she, as well as 
the boys, must have an orchard of her own, 
and even little Sue was to have one. 

The planting of the first tree was made a 
great event. It was decided that a grand 
festival must be held to celebrate the occa- 
sion. Flags they would have, yes, and a 
procession, and speeches. 

The festival was planned for Saturday. 
Everybody was invited, and everybody 
came. Even the minister came, and the 
principal of the school, and the teachers, 
besides all the neighbors, young and old — 
the fathers, the mothers, the babies, and 
everybody’s uncles, aunts, and cousins. 


Planting the Apple Tree 203 

Yes, everybody came, and all said what 
a great festival it was. 

At the appointed hour the assembled 
people formed a procession, with father, 
mother, the boys, Christobel, and little Sue 
at the head. They marched with flags fly- 
ing, singing as they went. They took their 
way to the slope where the new orchards 
were to lie. A hole had been dug and pre- 
pared for the first tree. 

When they reached the place, the people 
grouped themselves about the tree planters. 
Then someone struck up a song of thanks- 
giving that everybody knew, because they 
often sang it in school. 

All joined in, and, Oh, how they did sing! 
Then the minister made a short prayer, and 
invoked a blessing on the young orchards 
and young owners. Then they sang again. 

Then Robert stepped forth because he 
was the oldest. He bore a fair young apple 
tree in his hands. He placed it in the 
ground. He straightened out its roots and 
then each of the four children threw in a 
spadeful of earth. 


204 The Apple-Tree Sprite 

Then father stood up and repeated the 
following verse from a poem called “The 
Planting of the Apple Tree,” by a poet who 
loved apple trees. 

Father spoke in a clear, loud voice that 
everyone could hear: 

Come, let us plant the apple tree. 

Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; 

Wide let its hollow bed be made; 

There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care, 

And press it o’er them tenderly. 

As, round the sleeping infant’s feet 
We softly fold the cradle sheet; 

So plant we the apple tree. 

Then mother said the next verse in a 
sweet, clear voice that everyone could hear: 

What plant we in this apple tree? 

Buds, which the breath of summer days 
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays; 

Boughs whei'e the thrush, with crimson breast. 

Shall ha unhand sing and hide her nest; 

We plant, upon the sunny lea, 

A shadow for the noontide hour, 

A shelter from the summer shower, 

When we plant the apple tree. 


Planting the Apple Tree 205 

Then came Robert's turn, and he spoke 
up in a clear and ringing voice that every- 
one could hear: 

What plant we in this apple tree? 

Sweets for a hundred flowery springs. 

To load the May-wind’s restless wings, 

When, from the orchard row, he pours 
Its fragrance through our open doors; 

A world of blossoms for the bee, 

Flowers for the sick girl’s silent room, 

For the glad infant sprigs of bloom. 

We plant with the apple tree. 

Then came Bennie, and spoke his part as 
well as anybody: 

What plant we in this apple tree? 

Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 

And redden in the August noon, 

And drop, when gentle airs come by, 

That fan the blue September sky. 

While children come, with cries of glee, 

And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass. 

At the foot of the apple tree. 

Then came Christobel, who did her part 
so that the people all said how well she 
spoke: 


206 


The Apple-Tree Sprite 

And when, above this apple tree. 

The winter stars are quivering bright. 

And winds go howling through the night, 

Girls, whose young eyes o’erflow with mirth, 

Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth, 

And guests in prouder homes shall see, 

Heaped with the grape of Cintra’s vine, 

And golden orange of the line, 

The fruit of the apple tree. 

Little Sue, who had now grown to be 
quite a big girl, took her place by the side 
of the young tree. She was a little bit 
frightened but she opened her mouth 
bravely, and in a moment forgot to be 
afraid. She spoke so nicely that when she 
was through everybody applauded. And 
this is what she said: 


The fruitage of this apple tree 
Winds, and our flag of stripe and star 
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, 

Where men shall wonder at the view. 
And ask in what fair groves they grew; 

And sojourners beyond the sea 
Shall think of childhood’s careless day. 
And long, long hours of summer play, 
In the shade of the apple tree. 


Planting the Apple Tree 207 

When little Sue had finished, father in- 
vited everybody to the big barn, where the 
children played games and the older people 
talked and laughed, and all had a good 
time, and as many fine apples as they could 
eat. 

Next day, father and the boys and the 
hired men went to work to set out the rest 
of the trees and finish up the orchards. 

And you can imagine that all of the new 
owners dreamed many beautiful dreams 
about the future of their dear trees. And 
let us hope that Christobel’s Apple-Tree 
Sprite was on hand to help make it all a 
grand success. 

















































































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